tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-187563312024-03-07T15:20:30.667-05:00The Legend of Wooley SwampWhat ever happened to nuance? Jabberwocky is being spewed up by the left and right as they try to drag us into their Wonderlands. This blog charts a path out of this swamp of simple truths and false certainties. And from time to time, it'll be a place for more light-hearted musings.Johnnie Nahannihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16937574249513084662noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-69140787392596759842008-03-22T19:21:00.015-05:002008-03-25T11:20:47.382-05:00When You Only Hear What You Want to Hear(you're tone-deaf...)<br /><br />Well, as feared <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2008/03/obama-offers-up-some-serious-nuance.html">a few days ago</a>, people may have heard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Obama's</span> speech, but they sure as hell didn't listen.<br /><br />People read what they wanted to into the speech. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">OK</span>, that's inevitable to a degree. But to so utterly conflate theology with politics - or refuse to acknowledge the salience of race - is simply denying reality. Moreover, when you <span style="font-style: italic;">do </span>get into the politics of all this: you find so many examples of hypocrisy and/or double standards that they'll spin your head out of orbit.<br /><br />Look, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Obama's</span> approval of Wright's theology and the gratefulness he feels towards the preacher for helping him find spiritual peace, does NOT mean that he approves of the man's politics. This connection only exists in the minds of those who want it to be there. This guilt by association thinking is the opposite of the speech: simplistic, myopic and insular.<br /><br />Furthermore, it's lazy: since few care to find out more about the church in question. Even a smidgen of research would show that <a href="http://www.tucc.org/home.htm">Trinity United Church of Christ</a> is not a hotbed of extremism (in fact, it is progressive on issues like gay rights). If you believe that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Obama</span> would join an extremist church, stay there for TWENTY years and then hope he could "get away with it", I've got a bridge to sell ya...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.usacitydirectories.com/travelamerica/images/brooklyn-bridge.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px;" src="http://www.usacitydirectories.com/travelamerica/images/brooklyn-bridge.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />On the issue of race: it's clear to me that some people can't overcome their own prejudice. They watch the endless loops of Wright screaming "God damn America" on television, and then get <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/tv-medias-willful-misund_b_92692.html">their "analyses" of Obama's speech</a> from the same channels that peddle these loops to begin with. Where was the journalism over the years, decades, centuries, describing a church like this, a preacher like this? This is what we get as consumers? Thanks, but no f^%*%^king thanks. It's pathetic.<br /><br />Have you heard of Margaret B. Jones, aka Margaret "Peggy" Seltzer?<br /><br />If not, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/tv-medias-willful-misund_b_92692.html">read this and weep</a>. A case like this shows how far removed the white community is from any black reality. Yet, they are willing to believe whatever their malicious prejudiced or bleeding liberal little hearts tell them...<br /><br />Let me conclude with what "real" pundits have to say. In the mainstream media, Nicolas <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Kristof</span> of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">NYT</span> has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20kristof.html?em&ex=1206244800&en=f0463b8abc22bc1b&ei=5087%0A">excellent points</a> to share: "The outrage over sermons by Mr. Wright demonstrates how desperately we as a nation need the dialogue about race that Mr. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Obama</span> tried to start with his speech on Tuesday. Many well-meaning Americans perceive Mr. Wright as fundamentally a hate-monger who preaches antagonism toward whites. But those who know his church say that is an unrecognizable caricature: He is a complex figure and sometimes a reckless speaker, but one of his central messages is not anti-white hostility but black self-reliance."<br /><br />And the same paper's Roger Cohen reflects on his youth in South Africa, on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20cohen.html?em&ex=1206244800&en=7d2405922b33235e&ei=5087%0A">how being white in a racist state</a>, informs his take on all this: "The unimaginable South African transition that Nelson Mandela made possible is a reminder that leadership matters. Words matter...The unthinkable can come to pass. When I was a teenager, my relatives advised me to enjoy the swimming pools of Johannesburg because “next year they will be red with blood.” But the inevitable bloodbath never came. Mandela walked out of prison and sought reconciliation, not revenge. Later Mandela would say: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”<br /><br />Over at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Huffington</span> Post, former Religious Right leader Franklin <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Schaeffer</span> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer">puts the religious and other aspects into a wider perspective</a>: "I think there is reason to hope. There are decent people out there who have refused to go along with the smear-by-association campaign. Mike <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Huckabee</span> defended <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Obama</span>. McCain said we can't blame <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Obama</span> for his minister's words. Not everyone on the right is stooping as low as the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Clintons</span> and the right-wing media scavengers. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Obama</span> is worth fighting for. He is worth losing old friends for. History has thrown America an unlikely lifeline. Do we have the decency, the sense, the last glimmer of sanity needed to open our hearts to change?"<br /><br />Finally, the most interesting take on all of this, Charles Murray's. Charles who? The man behind <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve">the infamous Bell Curve</a>, that's who!<br /><br />Writing on the National <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Review's</span> online forum for its own writers, <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/">the Corner</a>, Murray actually professed to like the speech. He is no liberal, and as he make amply clear, would never vote for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Obama</span>. But he was deeply saddened by his friends' and peers' reactions to his approval of what Obama's speech was<span style="font-style: italic;"> really </span>about:<br /><br /><p class="blog_title_holder"><span class="blog_title"></span></p><blockquote><p class="blog_title_holder"><span class="blog_title">My Last Word on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Obama</span>, I Promise.</span> [Charles Murray]<br /></p><p class="blog_text"> </p><div class="MsoBodyText">To all my friends and people I admire who have completely befuddled me with their reaction to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Obama</span>’s speech: Speaking or writing about difficult race problems is different from<span> </span>speaking or writing about any other public policy issue. If you take a position on the Iraq war or health care, you will attract reaction from people who say you’re crazy, but they will be responding to what you actually said and, more or less, to how you actually meant it. The same is not true of race. Text that deals with a difficult racial issue is like a Rorschach ink blot. People project onto that text—project their own experiences, anxieties, angers; all the emotions that go into thinking about race, which means all the emotions that exist. You can weigh every word of your text. You can rewrite it until you think there is absolutely no way that a fair-minded person can fail to understand what you said. And they will not only fail to understand it, they will accuse you of saying exactly the opposite of what you said. </div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div> <div class="MsoBodyText">“Murray just has hurt feelings about <em>The Bell Curve</em><span>,” I hear from the bleachers. Well, yeah. But the problem generalizes to everyone who tries to be honest about race, and now it has happened to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Barack</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Obama</span>. Take, for example, the treatment of <span> </span>his reference to his white grandmother. </span><em>Of course </em><span>you can go after him in all the ways that people have gone after him—if what you want to do is go after him. But suppose you approach <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Obama</span>’s text under the twin assumptions that (a) he is trying to communicate with you, and, (b) your obligation is to make a good-faith effort to understand his meaning. I read what he said about his grandmother, and his words left me in no doubt about two things: He really loves his grandmother, and he was saying something important about race that I recognized from my own experience. I bet many of the people who have slammed him recognize it from their own experience too. The guy was being honest, and he was being right. What the hell more do you want?</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div> <div class="MsoBodyText">Ah, but he was trashing his grandmother for political purposes, he was equating what she said with the much more terrible things that Rev. Wright said, blah, blah, blah. Yes—if you insist on interpreting what he said purely as an exercise in political positioning. No, if you go to his text with the intention of trying to understand what <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Obama</span> thinks about race.</div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div> <div class="MsoBodyText">I understand how <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">naïve</span> it is to read a presidential candidate’s speech as if it were anything except political positioning, but that leads me to my final point: It’s about time that people who disagree with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Obama</span>’s politics recognize that he is genuinely different. When he talks, he sounds like a real human being, not a politician. I’m not referring to the speechifying, but to the way he comes across all the time. We’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">ve</span> had lots of charming politicians. I cannot think of another politician in my lifetime who conveys so much sense of talking to individuals, and talking to them in ways that he sees as one side of a dialogue. Conservatives who insist that he’s nothing but an even slicker Bill Clinton are missing a reality about him, and at their peril.</div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div> <div class="MsoBodyText">I can’t vote for him. He is an honest-to-God lefty. He apparently has learned nothing from the 1960s. His Supreme Court nominees would be disasters. And maybe he is too green and has lived too much of his adult life in a politically correct bubble. But the other day he talked about race in ways that no other major politician has tried to do, with a level of honesty that no other major politician has dared, and with more insight than any other major politician possesses. <span> </span>Not bad. </div></blockquote><div class="MsoBodyText"><span><br /></span></div><blockquote><p class="blog_permalink"><a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTM4MjJkYmNhMjM5MjQ1YzVhNzhjMTE3NzQ1ZWI4MjU=" class="blog_permalink">03/21 10:36 AM</a></p></blockquote><br /><blockquote></blockquote><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">jn</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-56815430783292595592008-03-18T11:55:00.010-05:002008-03-19T19:46:55.865-05:00Senator Obama Serves Us Some Serious Nuance<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pWe7wTVbLUU&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pWe7wTVbLUU&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />I guess the question is whether people are willing to listen and move beyond what they are comfortable hearing. Every single one of us has to stop patting ourselves on the backs, pointing fingers and/or wallowing in self-pity. That's the message. We gotta look within and own up.... <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2008/03/tracy-morgan-tells-it-like-it-is.html">Right, Tracy?</a><br /><br />jnUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-82200860381924798652008-03-17T09:47:00.010-05:002008-03-18T12:26:37.504-05:00Tracy Morgan Tells It Like It Is!<embed allowNetworking="all" allowScriptAccess="always" src="http://widgets.nbc.com/o/4727a250e66f9723/47dec61868332473" width="384" height="316" quality="high" wmode="transparent" id="W47dec61868332473" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> </embed><br /><br />jnUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-34783372580121925652007-11-22T14:06:00.000-05:002007-11-22T14:35:39.409-05:00Thanksgiving 2007<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjiVmJMTCErow4BurEU-R4WMpPGgUT6-Jb9UjRybnbSpYCIN2Dbyg4TsmrkmLj8HTmJSND4P4ZIrAPOm1F7Kg8RxnXC5qvRnBvddbui8Ze7BWdHKKIOVdO0Khojlk2GXQIYjqndg/s1600-h/thanksgiving+turkey.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjiVmJMTCErow4BurEU-R4WMpPGgUT6-Jb9UjRybnbSpYCIN2Dbyg4TsmrkmLj8HTmJSND4P4ZIrAPOm1F7Kg8RxnXC5qvRnBvddbui8Ze7BWdHKKIOVdO0Khojlk2GXQIYjqndg/s400/thanksgiving+turkey.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5135750281237897778" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Thanksgiving anno 2007.<br /><br /> I offer you <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16452593">Chinyere's reflections</a> on <span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1195727715_0">Thanksgiving</span> and family.<br /><br />Chinyere is a good friend of my sweetheart, Jenjira.<br /><br />This is what it´s all about.<br /><br />Happy Thanksgiving, folks!<br /><br />joUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-49383077634042075322007-09-18T10:19:00.000-05:002007-09-18T15:38:14.104-05:00"Choking Freakin´ Dogs" Rally in the Rain<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDSkmo_UdQor04WGeNMQcIXEIM-mGDxN7uCNszWuAXhrImMTN8-J7XaWnCO5ZZuVVEAyOPsjqKE7495uV1vmnSmiqSvHHfhKzW_yokzX2tSbWF19PeYENsNxB7Y_mSTbJfs6Hg8w/s1600-h/capt.2ce8c2d720e74d51b0274db21b1f32dc.sweden_golf_solheim_cup_xag131.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDSkmo_UdQor04WGeNMQcIXEIM-mGDxN7uCNszWuAXhrImMTN8-J7XaWnCO5ZZuVVEAyOPsjqKE7495uV1vmnSmiqSvHHfhKzW_yokzX2tSbWF19PeYENsNxB7Y_mSTbJfs6Hg8w/s320/capt.2ce8c2d720e74d51b0274db21b1f32dc.sweden_golf_solheim_cup_xag131.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111579070437894930" border="0" /></a><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070916/483/2ce8c2d720e74d51b0274db21b1f32dc"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(c) AP Photo/Alastair Grant</span></span></a><br /><br />Yes, the American ladies beat both Sweden in ladies´ World Cup and then Europe in the Solheim Cup. This weekend saw plenty of the good, the bad and the real ugly. Speaking of which, former Solheim Cup player Dottie Pepper <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003888031_solheim17.html">managed to get things going for her compatriots</a> when she called them "choking freakin´dogs" while commenting for the Golf Channel. Her excuse? She thought they had just cut to commercial...<br /><br />Pepper has a history to go with this comment: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/solheim00/fs05.htm">her behavior in former Solheim Cups</a> drove the likes of Annika and Laura Davies to draw her face on a punching bag....now that ain´t nice.<br /><br />More ugly: the weather. For years, decades, a lifetime, I have been trying to convince folks that the myth of bad Swedish weather is just that, a darn freakin´ myth. These are some of the adjectives used to describe the conditions in Halmstad "gloomy", "wet", "stormy", "cold" etc. etc. And I can´t say that it wasn´t all that and more. Besides, up here near the Arctic Circle, I woke up to snow yesterday.<br /><br />But what I like is that the weather wasn´t dwelt upon by the players and for once the Europeans didn´t resort to excuses. Guess that would have been embarrassing due to the home course advantage. Trust me, over the years I have read countless interviews with athletes who have moaned about the weather or whatever, just in case they wind up performing poorly... lame.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxiMtXO57wAXMID15izsnxv6BHmBcHA9gNWlxtEffq14I8hCNPAnlZPuphqLgIxrMgz4-n1w7C-B7L3oFCpI2ZjO7eRBZGHUtw05t2W6wFa2xOGDXjITKqPN8ACtPlzHoKSyYz_g/s1600-h/r4287936390.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxiMtXO57wAXMID15izsnxv6BHmBcHA9gNWlxtEffq14I8hCNPAnlZPuphqLgIxrMgz4-n1w7C-B7L3oFCpI2ZjO7eRBZGHUtw05t2W6wFa2xOGDXjITKqPN8ACtPlzHoKSyYz_g/s320/r4287936390.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5111579495639657250" border="0" /></a>OK, so it came down to the singles and the U.S. took 8 of the 12 matches, Europe 3 with one halved. Two U.S. rookies, Stacy Prammanasudh and Morgan Pressel won their matches. And how! As <a href="http://sport.guardian.co.uk/golf/story/0,,2170711,00.html">the Guardian reported</a>:<br /><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>The most significant point of the day was earned by Stacy Prammanasudh, who was matched with Suzann Pettersen. With Annika Sorenstam spending most of the year battling against injury, the Norwegian has emerged as Europe's best player, winning one major, the LPGA championship... </blockquote>Meanwhile, Pressel, a mere 19, beat Annika - the best player in history and still number 3 in the world. Kudos (the photo is of red-clad Pressel´s dishing out a consolation hug to Annika; <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070916/ids_photos_sp/r4287936390.jpg">REUTERS/Bob Strong.</a>) So much for choking...<br /><br />------<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>PIC of Schelin...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Returning to the world of football, I regret to report that <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_ylt=AiaOWusjxu8.Z0V3CCOa_DQmw7YF?slug=ap-wwcup-nigeria-us&prov=ap&type=lgns">Sweden was knocked out today</a>. They managed to do what the U.S. couldn´t, beat North Korea, but it was not enough. They had to win by at least three goals to leap frog the North Koreans in the standings.<br /><br />Oh well, they played well in this match and </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotta_Schelin">Lotta Schelin, the next big thing in women´s soccer</a>, was awesome today, scoring both goals.<br />And you can argue that the rules should be changed since goal difference is less telling than the head to head encounter. My guess is that FIFA just wants to encourage more goals, but then you wind up with an increased likelihood of a losing team going through. But them´s the rules, so no whining...</span><br /><br />To close, check out this clip from Friday´s U.S. - Sweden game. What a goal by Wambach, pure poetry...<br /><br /><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PGrvJjEv6mk"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PGrvJjEv6mk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><blockquote></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-11606833313405565212007-09-14T11:18:00.000-05:002007-09-15T10:14:29.278-05:00Ladies First in the Wide, Wide, World of SportsI'm talking about this weekend, folks.<br /><br />It's all about the ladies! Move on over, male chauvinists....<br /><br />For the first time ever (?), two major sporting events for women are being staged at the same time. And in two very different sports at that, soccer/football and golf.<br /><br />1) <a href="http://www.fifa.com/womenworldcup/index.html">The World Cup</a>, contested by 16 of the leading ladies´ football teams in the world.<br /><br />2) <a href="http://solheimcup.golf.se/extra/pod/?module_instance=9">The Solheim Cup</a>, one of the rare team events in Golf, features the U.S. versus a Europe team, flying the EU flag - kinda odd since among others a non-EU Norwegian is playing for Europe. Anywho...<br /><br />In case you´re interested, most of this is on TV though surviving the live broadcasts may require caffeine and/or alcohol depending on what time zone you are in. The World Cup takes place in China and the Solheim Cup in Sweden. Currently, I am keeping an eye on Sweden v. the U.S. in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu">Chengdu, Sichuan, China</a> as well as the first day of the Solheim Cup in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halmstad">Halmstad, Halland, Sweden</a>.<br /><br />Some factoids, intrigue and trivia:<br /><br />Over in the People's Republic, crazy things are afoot.<br /><br />Danes are accusing <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=afp-fblwc2007womengpddenchnpolice&prov=afp&type=lgns">the hosts of spying on them and ruining the pitches</a> they practice on...<br /><br /><br />Back on the pitch, <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_ylt=AkBTyq1VQvJ1cUtQ1QZHgRd4urkF?slug=ap-wwcup-us&prov=ap&type=lgns">the game between the US and Sweden</a> promises to be entertaining. The U.S. are heavy favorites, even if the Swedish media and team are optimistic. Currently that seems misplaced since the Americanas are up 1-0....scratch that, 2-0...the incredible <a href="http://www.abbywambach.com/">Abby Wambach</a> getting both goals. That´s 80 goals in 98 international appearances!!!!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYawPKle1G33fF-TbOnVJ-n0luEHE3h9N8seaKESzIoywmwaAIZ1I8MqgSW7fuLKA0CcRruOEDPF65llQNyTzWBMb11zIcHT6Haj588BTGAX0ksB5-D_YKXFYMldWO-plu6sjQkQ/s1600-h/capt.wcche11909111453.china_wwcup_usa_north_korea_wcche119.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYawPKle1G33fF-TbOnVJ-n0luEHE3h9N8seaKESzIoywmwaAIZ1I8MqgSW7fuLKA0CcRruOEDPF65llQNyTzWBMb11zIcHT6Haj588BTGAX0ksB5-D_YKXFYMldWO-plu6sjQkQ/s320/capt.wcche11909111453.china_wwcup_usa_north_korea_wcche119.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110022381016296114" border="0" /></a><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070911/483/wcche11909111453"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Great game-saving dive by Solo!</span></span></a><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070911/483/wcche11909111453">(c) AP, Julie Jacobsen</a></span></span><br /></div><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span></div>In their first game, <a href="http://www.fifa.com/womenworldcup/matches/round=248549/match=56319/index.html">the U.S. faced North Korea</a>, one of those politically charged games. This was especially true since there were thousands of North Koreans in the stadium - China being the one country, <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/01/2006-year-of-vilhelm-north-korea.html">ol´Kim Jong-il lets his compatriots escape to</a>. Anyway, it was an awesome game with Kil Son-Hui (props to anyone who can find me a hyperlink for this lady) firing projectiles towards the American goal all night long...<br /><br /><br />North Korea can win this tournament, <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ighUi8edZCQLbcDoQdxXPhAOgh1g">Coach Kim ain´t all bluster</a>, and that would be interesting...they have a great short-passing style.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB5pnR1HnYSLJ7RvqEwiuMJnUuk46meaMQ5XhVzeHrMmRYhP77HifZx99p4tv7sOCgh62SpuCwoY2i5ueVO_08wjU1wknoOrXyBjbV7CrmimBPTU27sPmBphWB3Cje4LHLbJ7gGw/s1600-h/NKfans.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB5pnR1HnYSLJ7RvqEwiuMJnUuk46meaMQ5XhVzeHrMmRYhP77HifZx99p4tv7sOCgh62SpuCwoY2i5ueVO_08wjU1wknoOrXyBjbV7CrmimBPTU27sPmBphWB3Cje4LHLbJ7gGw/s320/NKfans.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110006163219786370" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070911/ids_photos_sp/r1636170059.jpg">(c) Jason Lee, Reuters</a><br /></span></span></div><br />Meanwhile, in the world of golfing millionaires...(which btw is something, unlike their male counterparts, that soccer ladies most certainly are not.)<br /><br />The U.S. is <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/news;_ylt=AmtbcKeJRVLdr9dPSOQaWysogsUF?slug=ap-solheimcup&prov=ap&type=lgns">the defending Solheim champion</a>, but with nice n´ rainy Swedish fall weather to help them, Europe hopes to stick to the tradition of home team victories.<br /><br />Things get a little patriotic (Euro-patriotism?) bordering on nationalistic during these events, and for some reasons, things seem to get especially testy in the courteous world of golf. Recent Ryder Cups, the mens' team event, have been downright nasty.<br /><br />So, how's this for attitude from the Swedish Euro captain, Helen Alfredsson:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5KO0AutFp2AVkYCyTBA8TGwJ0o2e4FiMBUegA95DCAqrUj6D3S7OR5a4HZUzmYIb0aF2aF1upAo_xAJNj5LBvE2mRKnwgssJBYRogc3XA18ssbKD-__Tm0cAlFQyFdxrC6bDl9g/s1600-h/kanelbulle.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5KO0AutFp2AVkYCyTBA8TGwJ0o2e4FiMBUegA95DCAqrUj6D3S7OR5a4HZUzmYIb0aF2aF1upAo_xAJNj5LBvE2mRKnwgssJBYRogc3XA18ssbKD-__Tm0cAlFQyFdxrC6bDl9g/s200/kanelbulle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110031950203431634" border="0" /></a>"After a non-Swedish caddie remarked about a tasty cinnamon roll, Alredsson said it was called a "kanelbulle." When the caddie balked at pronouncing the words, she said, "Come on, learn a little Swedish while you're here this week. At least you'll get something good to eat." The kanelbullar, by the way, are spectacular." ( <a href="http://www.golfdigest.com/golfworld/columnists/2007/09/20070911sirakblog?currentPage=2">from this article</a>)<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon_bun">The bun, whose<br />name you forget at your peril!!</a><br /></span></span></div><br />Pretty innocuous, but let's see how friendly folks are after the weekend.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Sörenstam teeing off</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070914/ids_photos_sp/r2456094885.jpg">(c) Reuters, Bob Strong</a></span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrYkrYvmQ3v2jpp1grOX6-aLm9aut4d-YPle4O4uqHR5vMl8EEleAuqmmQ36Aqo6A5bpsqCOqbxuaW1JRGbVx9PKtO1I2QU5eQQmoCi0PX-RRTN1xjrkwr3MIuBpQfT7-eW5FqTA/s1600-h/annika.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrYkrYvmQ3v2jpp1grOX6-aLm9aut4d-YPle4O4uqHR5vMl8EEleAuqmmQ36Aqo6A5bpsqCOqbxuaW1JRGbVx9PKtO1I2QU5eQQmoCi0PX-RRTN1xjrkwr3MIuBpQfT7-eW5FqTA/s200/annika.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110008469617224338" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQbbkj5tXh8NQg6clo1M4qBCNxhcc1alo12Va0bvD3RzKb0_8n7CDSUfezp5b7YeJnovRZ2ywvNVmZNjifg_u5WHMJG87kPZE92Q9djpcZvGhBF7-efaMyb1ANLXg8_sBeKmP2Vw/s1600-h/capt.68b6a9dbaed54836ac24b4c8ae6b5214.sweden_golf_solheim_cup_xag114.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQbbkj5tXh8NQg6clo1M4qBCNxhcc1alo12Va0bvD3RzKb0_8n7CDSUfezp5b7YeJnovRZ2ywvNVmZNjifg_u5WHMJG87kPZE92Q9djpcZvGhBF7-efaMyb1ANLXg8_sBeKmP2Vw/s200/capt.68b6a9dbaed54836ac24b4c8ae6b5214.sweden_golf_solheim_cup_xag114.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5110009156811991714" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Paula Creamer with tattoos<br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070914/483/68b6a9dbaed54836ac24b4c8ae6b5214">(c) AP, Alastair Grant </a></span></span></div><br /><br />So, are <a href="http://www.annikasorenstam.com/">Annika Sörenstam</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanna_Ljungberg">Hanna Ljungberg</a> gonna show their mettle? Or will it be all about <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=119877178">Hope Solo</a> ( read <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/national/2007-07-24-hope-solo_N.htm">this great piece</a> on her and her father) - but why am I suddenly seeing <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Millennium_Falcon">the Millenium Falcon</a> hitting warp speed? - and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/lpga/2007-05-30-profile-prammanasudh_N.htm">Stacy Prammanasudh</a>?<br />jo<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070914/ids_photos_sp/r2456094885.jpg"></a><br /></span></span><br />UPDATE: In Chengdu, <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_ylt=Ao0cSM3Le3vU9I90yvikb1kmw7YF?slug=ap-wwcup-sweden-us&prov=ap&type=lgns">the U.S. won 2-0 vs. Sweden</a> and it´s all square in Halmstad, where it´s raining, raining, raining....<br /><div style="text-align: right;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070914/483/68b6a9dbaed54836ac24b4c8ae6b5214"></a></span></span><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1162494389003182822006-11-02T13:20:00.001-05:002008-03-17T11:58:42.501-05:00L.A. Jury to Save the World from Swedish Huckster<span style="font-weight: bold;">Updated on 11/3/2006: </span><span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-110306ferrari,0,3114552.story?coll=la-home-headlines">A mistrial has been declared</a>!!! Oh well, a temporary setback.<br />Also, see this link for <a href="http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/gizmondo.html">yet another mindboggling write-up</a> on this saga.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />Yes, you read correctly - a L.A. jury may for once actually do the right thing.<br /><br />The Swampmeister is currently in sunny Los Angeles and an important criminal case has come to his attention. Unlike <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_trial">O.J</a>., <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King">Rodney King's tormenters</a> in blue, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blake_%28actor%29#Acquittal">Robert "Baretta" Blake</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson:_2005_trial">the King of Pop</a>, Bo Stefan Eriksson, a native of Sweden, looks unlikely to find any mercy from his designated Californian peers. This jury will surely not acquit....<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/BSE3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/BSE3.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/BSE2.7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/BSE2.7.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Ex-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppsala">Uppsala</a> mafioso BSE (with lawyer) at the pre-trial hearing and during the trial.<br />(c)<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/061023/ids_photos_ts/r2640802131.jpg">Reuters/Chris Pizzello</a> and <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/061102/480/cefde54896df4d7b8dac5af33e173c9d">AP/Ric Francis</a></span><br /><br />Eriksson has such <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Eriksson">an amazingly sordid record</a> (cocaine, hit and runs, stolen cars fraud etc.) that it's totally mindboggling to think he was let into the U.S. in the first place. In this day and age of heightened terror-related paranoia and anti-immigrant sentiment, here's one guy you <span style="font-style: italic;">don't </span>want in your country. Here's one guy who managed to import three one-million cars that belonged to British banks! Customs, DHS? No problems!<br /><br />In fact, BSE (you gotta love someone with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy">the same initials as Mad Cow Disease</a>!) somehow become a deputy commissioner in an "anti-terrorism" unit run by the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Valley_Transit_Authority"> San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority</a>! Seriously. It should be added that the only reason he was free to roam is that the sentence imposed following a fraud and counterfeiting case in Sweden was halved from ten to five years! Stranger than fiction....<br /><br />Read about Bo Stefan's mad life in <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fg-ferrari15may15,0,790067,full.story">this excellent L.A. Times feature</a> (e.g. how Busta Rhymes and Sting helped him promote some gadget that never worked) or in <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061102/apfn_ferrari_crash_trial.html?.v=1">this wire story</a> on the car crash that allowed the authorities catch up with him.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/ferrari_enzo_crash_005.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/ferrari_enzo_crash_005.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">A photo from the aftermath of the Ferrari Enzo's spectacular 200 mph crash that led to his eventual arrest <a href="http://www.wreckedexotics.com/special/enzo/">(c) Wrecked Exotics.</a> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update: </span>A hung jury (10-2) has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110300945.html">resulted in a mistrial</a>, so this L.A. jury botched its first chance to dish out some justice. Also, I came across <a href="http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/gizmondo.html">this fascinating Wired exposé</a> (props to<a href="http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/gizmondo/wireds-gizmondo-exposo-205334.php"> Kotoku.com</a>) on the amazing life of Bo Stefan.<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subject: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bo+stefan+eriksson" rel="tag">bo stefan eriksson</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Los+Angeles+jury" rel="tag">Los Angeles jury</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/LA" rel="tag">LA</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sweden" rel="tag">Sweden</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Law" rel="tag">Law</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Crime" rel="tag">Crime</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/jury" rel="tag">jury</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/immigration" rel="tag">immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/California" rel="tag">California</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1162086241734862582006-10-29T21:44:00.000-05:002006-11-03T15:24:40.551-05:00Niqabophobia<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>It’s been three weeks since Jack Straw, </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region>’s former Foreign Secretary – now demoted to the position of Leader of the House of Commons – <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5413470.stm">revealed himself to be ever so uncomfortable</a><span lang="EN-US"> when his female constituents came to his office wearing a full-faced veil, the niqab. Those three weeks have been so filled with bluster and hype that I lost count long ago. Part of my daytime job has been collecting and analyzing various op-eds and articles on this subject. It’s been mostly disheartening reading, with occasional glimpses of enlightenment. </span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In general, there appears to be an amazing reservoir of fear to tap into. Having lived in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">London</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US"> for two years, I have often raved how comfortable people there are with diversity compared to other places. A ride in the London Tube is always pleasant since the tension present elsewhere in </span><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Europe</span></st1:place><span lang="EN-US"> is simply absent.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Niqab.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Niqab.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/061017/ids_photos_wl/r1516270963.jpg"><span lang="EN-US">(c) </span>REUTERS, Phil Noble</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Yes, </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">London</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US"> is not </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"> nor is it </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Northern Ireland</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US">, but still the visciousness of the debate has been a little too telling. And it is surprising. The question "why now?" pops up. Has anything changed recently? As much as I’d like to blame the politicians for cynically unleashing the mob for the sake of political gain (Straw and others are in the running to replace Tony Blair) and setting up smokescreens (to distract from society’s real problems like racism, discrimination and segregation), I can’t really give them too much credit. They could not have fathomed the goldmine they hacked their way into.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Anyway, here are some thoughts and quotes from some of the articles I’ve been reading. Many of the more poignant comments have come from the Canadian press. Not so surprising since most Canadians have come to accept the niqab as one symbol among many and are thus more capable of seeing it for what it is: one tree in a forest. Folks over in </span><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Europe</span></st1:place><span lang="EN-US"> seem blind to individual trees and can only see an imaginary forest, the forest of radical Islam. Beards, veils, mosques...it all spells doom to them.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Without further ado, some pearls of wisdom from three Canucks. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">1. James Laxer, a political science at the </span><st1:place><st1:placetype><span lang="EN-US">University</span></st1:placetype><span lang="EN-US"> of </span><st1:placename><span lang="EN-US">Toronto</span></st1:placename></st1:place><span lang="EN-US">, cuts through the veneer of liberalism with consummate ease. That’s what’s bothered me all along, the fact that Straw claims to be encouraging reasonable debate when he is actually spewing out prejudice. In his piece, “<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061026.wxconiqab26/BNStory/National/">Veiling Intolerance in Liberal Discourse</a>”, Laxer writes: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><blockquote>“What is noteworthy is the spectacle of very powerful male politicians publicly criticizing a small number of women - who are hardly members of their countries' elites - for what they choose to wear. The criticism is made palatable because it is veiled (pun intended) in liberal discourse. These leaders are inviting the women wearing the <b><i>niqab</i></b> to abandon this mark of separation from the rest of society….In all dialogues of this sort, it is crucial to keep in mind the power relations among those who are doing the talking. What I see is something far from benign. A great deal of pressure is being brought to bear on a few women for reasons that extend well beyond the <b><i>niqab….</i></b><br /><br />What gives the narrative about the <b><i>niqab</i></b> its traction in the media is that it is the thin edge of the wedge in a critique of Muslims in general, not just those who wear the <b><i>niqab</i></b>. The question that is being asked, in a highly coded way to be sure, is whether Muslims constitute an alien presence in our society. Can they be relied upon to fit in as immigrants, to assimilate and become members of our society? Or will they be a dangerous, separate people, and even a source of terrorist recruits for attacks on us, with repeats of attacks like the suicide bombings in London in the summer of 2005?.....<br /><br />When the powerful within a society begin a narrative of the kind we have seen about the <b><i>niqab</i></b>, however, that is not what is going on. Muslims are being set apart as the "other." Though we may pride ourselves on our liberalism, in our civilization when people are set apart and critiqued as not really belonging in our midst, the consequences can be terrible.”</blockquote></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Of course it's about Muslims in general and not about the possibility of communication when someone is wearing a veil. The shrillness of the debate proves that beyond a doubt. Surely no one disputes that....and that raises the specter of Islamophobia.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">2. <a href="http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/story.html?id=e1b3a0b5-09c0-43f7-a55e-03977c00f8cc">Janet Bagnall draws a parallel</a> between the treatment the Amish community receives, (especially in the wake of the recent tragedy when the media went into a feeding frenzy) and that accorded to Muslims: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times new roman;" lang="EN-US">“What was so remarkable, in the view of the outside world, was the community's ability to forgive. The Amish, about whom no one from outside the community seemed to have spent any time thinking prior to Oct. 2, were not singled out for their rejection of state schooling beyond Grade 8 or modern conveniences. Nor was there any comment on their very modest attire, including long dresses and bonnets for the women. They were simply allowed to be who they are.<br /><br />It would be nice if the same easy-going acceptance could be extended to observant Muslims and whatever they choose to wear, be it headscarves or veils or loose cloaks. But after the terrorist attacks of </span><st1:date style="font-family: times new roman;" month="9" day="11" year="2001"><span lang="EN-US">Sept. 11, 2001</span></st1:date><span style="font-family: times new roman;" lang="EN-US">, in the </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times new roman;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: times new roman;" lang="EN-US"> and in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times new roman;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> on July 7 last year, it seems to be too much to ask”</span><br /><br /></span></blockquote><span lang="EN-US"></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">3. Finally <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v4/sub/MarketingPage?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061019.wxcoveil19/BNStory/specialComment/&amp;amp;amp;amp;ord=1162191498363&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true">Sheema Khan shares her own experience</a> with the niqab and has a wonderful description of the absurdity of it all:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><blockquote style="font-family: times new roman;"> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“I respect women who wear the <i>niqab</i>. At Harvard, after much spiritual reflection, I donned the <i>hijab</i> (headscarf) and also tried the <i>niqab</i> - for all of one hour. I found it stifling and unnatural. Yet others don't. And their choice should be respected. In some places, women are forced by the state to cover up. In other places, some have exercised their own choice to do so. At a recent scientific conference in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Dubai</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US">, I met intelligent, assertive <i>niqabis</i> who discussed current research with both genders. What is the big deal?....<br /><br />In a Monty Pythonesque scenario, the British political establishment demands that a particular minority (Muslims) integrate into British society, by coercing a minority within that minority to change its appearance. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and House of Commons leader Jack Straw have appropriated the veil as a symbol of "separateness" and an impediment to integration.<br /><br />Integration is a complex issue. It is disingenuous to think that discarding the <i>niqab</i> will engender a new path toward integration - especially into a society as hierarchical as that of the British. In a recent study by the Home Office, Muslim students were found to be far more tolerant than their non-Muslim counterparts. By placing full onus on the Muslim community, the government has abdicated its responsibility in the integration impasse. It also has embarked on a dangerously divisive path.”</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I can only concur. Read her entire piece for it compares Britain's behavior now to how it acted as a colonial master in Egypt. Back then the Governor Lord Cromer made comments eeriely similar to those of Straw's. These folks have understood nothing about assimilation. How it flows both ways, how the onus on the powerful, i.e. the host society, will always be greater.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I cannot fathom how anyone can believe that the niqab is the problem, or in fact even a problem at all. In fact, I’m quite sure that Jack Straw and company don’t believe their own hype. As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102401148.html">the Washington Post editorial</a> said a few days ago:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times new roman;" lang="EN-US">“It's hard to believe that veils are the biggest obstacle to communication between British politicians and the country's Muslims; and it's even harder to imagine Mr. Straw raising similar objections about Sikh turbans or Orthodox Jewish dress. True, the Labor Party MP was reflecting -- or maybe pandering to -- the concern of many in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times new roman;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: times new roman;" lang="EN-US"> about the self-segregation of some Muslims. But veils -- which are also under government attack in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times new roman;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">France</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: times new roman;" lang="EN-US"> and </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: times new roman;"><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Italy</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> -- are not the cause of that segregation, much less of terrorism. Attacks on Muslim custom by public officials are more likely to reinforce than to ease the community's alienation.”</span><br /><br /></span></blockquote><span lang="EN-US"></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <o:p></o:p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Niqab2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Niqab2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/061027/photos_lf_afp/bf051ecafe190ba9c1d7695e40f072a9">(c) AFP, John D. McHugh</a><br /><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the meantime, Britiain’s Deputy PM, John “Bruiser” Prescott, <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/28/asia/AS_POL_Malaysia_Britain_Visit.php">is in Malaysia learning</a> about how that country has managed its diversity. To his great credit - Bruiser came out swinging on this issue, “respectfully disagreeing” with the Strawman. I wrote a paper in college about how the West could perhaps learn a thing or two from the multiculturalism practiced in e.g. </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Malaysia</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"> or </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Singapore</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US">. But I didn’t believe then that in the year 2006, the former colonial overlord </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Britain</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"> would be off to the former subjects in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Kuala Lumpur</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US"> for advice. One thing's for sure, Prescott won't be advised to ban niqabs. Could not have written a more fitting script myself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Next time in the Swamp, you’ll meet </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Sweden</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US">’s new minister for integration, who also has a glitch with the niqab.<br /></span></p><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/niqab" rel="tag">niqab</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/veil" rel="tag">veil</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Islam" rel="tag">Islam</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/diversity" rel="tag">diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/multiculturalism" rel="tag">multiculturalism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/UK" rel="tag">UK</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1160672292646260332006-10-12T11:50:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:34.454-05:00Carlitos says Carlos Rocks!An inspiring little diddy from the one and only Carlos Mencia. The last minute or so is brilliant.<br /><br />Watch below or click on the title of this post. <br /><br /><br />jo<br /><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hZ6JVmhKpI8"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hZ6JVmhKpI8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1154800436416261642006-08-05T12:43:00.001-05:002008-03-17T21:02:14.363-05:00But Mama Said Knock Him Out....Don't call it a comeback....(read this post while checking out this video clip, crank up the volume and press play in the middle of the image)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-7l250E5uM4&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-7l250E5uM4&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />Yes, the Swampmeister was so incredibly disappointed with what transpired during the World Cup final that he went on an extended vacation. And just after having given Zizou <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/07/allons-enfants-de-la-patrie.html">his proper due</a> too! In the final he plays like a footballing demi-god, scores a wonderful penalty on the world's best goalie, who in turn then makes an incredible save on Zizou's 104th minute leaping header from another dimension, <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/10/sports/wcwrap.php">(click here</a> to read a good article about the final, there were so few). He was a 1/4 inch from winning a second World Cup, once again with his cabeza and adding a second etoile to the French jersey.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/zMM.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/zMM.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Enter Marco Materazzi,the grandest provacateure of them all. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pno96sPIRFw&mode=related&search=">(click for a video collage)</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Materazzi dishes out his sense of justice to Zlatan, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.theworldgame.com.au/worldcup/index.php?pid=st&cid=64130">click here for an article</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> addressing this incident and others.</span></span><br /></div><br />The same Materazzi who caused the penalty that Zidane scored on, the same Materazzi who equalized Zizou's strike and the same Materazzi who would later score one of the penalties in the shootout that gave Italy its fourth stella.<br /><br />Suddenly Zidane charged Materazzi like a bull, planted his magical head in the Italian's chest and down the latter went. "What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-going on around here?" summarizes what one billion people were thinking at that moment.<br /><br />Rumors were flying: nipple-pinching, racist jibes, counter-terrorism tactics or a classic yo mama joke, delivered in Italian. Materazzi declared the latter scenario absurd: he was a momma's boy, lost his own mother at the age of fifteen, respects and worships all mothers in the history of the world etc.<br /><br />French savant Bernard-Henri Levy (<a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/11/why-thuram-is-right-about-situation-in.html">unwitting contributor to the Swamp in the past</a>) is always ready to psychoanalyze anybody but himself. Here he goes into Zidane's background, emerging from the streets of Marseilles, teeming with honor and pent up rage:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-family: times new roman;">"No one knows what the Italian, Marco Materazzi, did or said (in the 111th minute of a match that this hero had dominated with all his grace) to reawaken in him those old demons of a kid from the streets of Marseilles, the very demons that soccer's code of honor, its ethic, its aesthetic, are made to quell. Even if we knew why; even if we knew for certain that the Italian insulted him, or cursed his mother, father, brothers, sister; even if we got hold of the black box of those 20 seconds that saw the champion destroy in a flash his legend that is a mix of secret king, a Dostoyevskian sweet man, the ideal <i>Beur</i> son-in-law, future mayor of Marseilles and, last but not least, the charismatic captain leading his troops to consecration; even if we knew the whole story, this suicide would be as all ordinary suicides are; no reason in the world explains the desperate act of a man--no provocation, no nasty remark, will ever tell us why the planetary icon that Zinedine Zidane had become, a man more admired than the Pope, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela put together, a demigod, a chosen one, this great priest-by-consensus of the new religion and the new empire in the making, chose to explode right there, rather than wait a few minutes to settle the quarrel on the sidelines."<br /></blockquote><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008636"></a><blockquote style="font-family: times new roman;"><a href="http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008636">(click here to read this entire, surreal piece of soccer meets Zeus and Freud</a>, some of it far too similar to material on this blog)</blockquote><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/zizou.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/400/zizou.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">On French TV a few days later, Zidane confirmed that it indeed was an insult to his mother and sister that triggered the moment of insanity. Zizou's mother Malika raised him a certain way. <a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,426531,00.html">She was quoted as saying</a>: "I want Materazzi's balls on a platter" </span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,426531,00.html"> (click here for more)</a></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">. Elemantary, <a href="http://www.sherlockian.net/">my dear Watson</a>, the mystery is solved. Zidane pleads the LL Cool J defense, someone else told him to do it. Mama said....<br /><br />Very reminiscent of what he told the press when he returned to the national team in 2005 after having retired a year earlier. "In the middle of the night, a voice told me to play for les Bleus."<br /><br />Here in the Swamp, it's too hot (DC heatwave, 100 F/40 C) to make any sense of this even a month later. But to my mind, Zinedine Zidane remains a good man - those who now so eagerly rushed to judge had been sharpening their knives for years. I say: Condemn the action, accept the man.<br /><br />Here endeth my own comeback and the long overdue final words on the World Cup. Soon a report from my vacation in the mountains of western Carolina and the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/world+cup" rel="tag">world cup</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/zinedine+zidane" rel="tag">zinedine zidane</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/zidane" rel="tag">zidane</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/France" rel="tag">France</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/zizou" rel="tag">zizou</a></span>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/materazzi" rel="tag">materazzi</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1152378738130008182006-07-08T12:07:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:33.079-05:00Allons Enfants de la Patrie....<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Zidane.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Zidane.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Le jour de gloire est arrivee!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">- La Marseillaise, French National Anthem (for complete lyrics click on the post headline)<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><font><font><font>Eight years the Swampmeister was lucky enough to be in France for most of that year's glorious World Cup. The host country showed unity, played decent football and wound up celebrating its new hero Zinedine Zidane - <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060708/ids_photos_sp/r990696846.jpg">(c) photo: Shaun Best, Reuters</a>) - during the mad victory celebrations <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/11/why-thuram-is-right-about-situation-in.html">his image was laser-projected</a> onto the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysee!<br /><br />This year I've been in Germany for most of the Copa and enjoyed being a supporter of Tunisia. However, once they were eliminated (<a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/06/pagan-rituals-backfire-vilhelm-smiles.html">as was ol' Sweden</a>) my allegiances shifted....again. We were blessed with tickets for the Spain-France game in Hannover because under the somewhat confusing ticketing rules - Spain had won the group that Tunisia was in.<br /><br />It was one of the best games in the tournament so far and the stadium was awesome, purpose built for soccer. And it reawakened my passion for les Bleus. It didn't hurt that I was traveling with my French cousin and his wife. Merci beaucoup! The skills of Zidane, Thuram and Henry are pure aestethics.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: left; font-family: times new roman;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/rib1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/rib1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Ribery dishing it out to Spain<br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060629/483/wcup10706291850">(c) AP, Kai-Uwe Knoth</a><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font>One of the new players - France has a perfect mix of age and youth - is Franck Ribery. He moves like lightning and is the most part of the great five man midfield. In the game against Spain he scored the all important equalizer just after the Spaniards had taken the lead. Today's WP has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701203.html">a great portrait</a> of a man with a fascinating life story.<br /><br /><br />In the subsequent games against Brazil and Portugal, he wreaked more havoc. The game versus Brazil also saw the best of Zidane - in a game full of ridiculously talented players, he outshone them by a mile. It will go down as one of the greatest performances of all time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/fraBraz.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/fraBraz.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Who's Your Daddy?<br />Zidane and Ze Roberto</span><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060701/ids_photos_sp/r1287618239.jpg">(c) Charles Platiau</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Tomorrow in Berlin, France takes on Italy, who knocked out the hosts Germany (my fourth choice team after Sweden, the U.S., France, and tied with Tunisia) in a thrilling semifinal. It was a heart-breaking moment for the Germans, who now have </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,425662,00.html">to try and settle for third place</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> in the "consolation" game against the other losers,</span> Portugal. This World Cup was supposed to mean so much for the German <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >geist</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" >, economy, and the plan was to win it. In a later post, I will address all this and the issues surrounding the California-based coach Klinsmann.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: right; font-family: times new roman;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/rib2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/rib2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060627/photos_sp_so_afp/70138e5bba1adf9da5f4ba440fbdc8c0">Ribery celebrateshis key goal!</a><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060627/photos_sp_so_afp/70138e5bba1adf9da5f4ba440fbdc8c0"> (c) AFP/Pierre-Phillipe Marcou</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><br />For now, it's all about </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,425661,00.html">the final between two major footballing powers</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> and great rivals. France and Italy play a similar game, with a lone striker upfront. In my mind, France is a tad more offensive and its players are just a little more interesting. But that goes down to the differences between the countries themselves: their views of diversity, nationhood, citizenship (though the rainbow nation of France is </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/06/AR2006070601742.html">still somewhat troubled </a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">and yes, soccer! Cattenaccio versus Beaute!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">My prediction is 2-1 to France without the need for any extra time or penalties. </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,425581,00.html">Zidane will score a scintillating goal</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> and Henry will poach one more. We will be watching the game here in Washington D.C. at <a href="http://www.politiki-dc.com/">the Pour House on Capitol Hill,</a> come join us! And let's hope Germany does well today and goes out with a bang.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><font><br />Vive La France!!!</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">jo</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Subjects: </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/world+cup" rel="tag">world cup</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/zinedine+zidane" rel="tag">zinedine zidane</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/zidane" rel="tag">zidane</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/France" rel="tag">France</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">; </span><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://technorati.com/tag/zizou" rel="tag">zizou</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">;<br /></span>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Washington+DC" rel="tag">Washington DC</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1151285960671703982006-06-25T20:25:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:33.002-05:00Pagan Rituals Backfire, Vilhelm SmilesSo there we were in yet <a href="http://www.pwag.net/">another gigantic Berlin biergarten</a>: War paint on, beer flowing, chants going strong, midsummer in air and engaged in endless pagan dances. It was so clearly going to be a day to remember. And so it was, but for all the wrong reasons. Somehow <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/24/AR2006062400497.html">Sweden managed to lose</a> a game that was in the bag and thrown down a mine shaft. It should've been like wolfing down a plate of Swedo-Teutonic meatballs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Zlatan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Zlatan.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Maybe I should've seen it coming when our group of 7 Sweden fans was suddenly surrounded by thousands of Germans. It was like this photo (c) <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/photo?slug=getty-fbl-wc2006-match49-ger-swe_9_36_50_am&prov=Getty%20Images">Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images</a> only worse. Zlatan (as were we) was outnumbered: big time. And in the biergarten they were dancing, turning the tables on us, and as midsummer grew suddenly cold, the pagan rituals were virtually nullified.<br /><br />And thus Germany <a href="http://www.prinzenrolle.de/">Prince Poldi</a> (<a href="http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/risingstars/story/0,,1782098,00.html">Lukas Podolski's</a> nickname, playing off a Dutch cookie that's worshipped in Deutschland) scored two goals in the opening twelve minutes while the headless chickens were still maxing and relaxing. Sweden then had to play with 10 men after its best defender Teddy Lucic was sent off in the 35th minute for a supposed foul. <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/henke-goes-to-paris-plus-world-cup.html">Henrik Larsson</a>, of all people, missed a penalty shot at the start of the second half. And so on, and so on. A hex, pure and simple.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/5944-Prinzen-Rollen-Keks%20.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/5944-Prinzen-Rollen-Keks%20.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.germandeli.com/debepr.html">Prince Poldi</a> Took a Bite out of the Swedish D<br /><br /></span></span></div>So please know this when you even think of uttering something like: "As expected, Germany won", "Sweden had no chance" , "German precision bla bla bla", "BMW Men flatten IKEA Kickers" "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpions_%28band%29">The Scorpions</a> Mete out Justice to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABBA">ABBA</a> wannabes" .... It ain't that simple. In 7 games out of ten, Germany will beat the Swedes, but only once in a blue moon will this kind of midsummer madness transpire.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/NL-PORT.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/NL-PORT.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>In other World Cup news, we just witnessed <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/25/AR2006062500478.html">the dirtiest match in World Cup history</a>. Holland tried to cheat its way past Portugal, but were schooled in the art of playing soccer. Nice one Portugal! How nasty was this game? See the all-telling collage photo <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/photo?slug=getty-fbl-wc2006-match52-por-ned_7_10_21_pm&prov=getty">(c) AFP/Getty Images</a>! The game was a disgrace.<br /><br />OK, time to rest, bake a humble meatball pie for y'all and dream of an alternative reality. One in which Prince Poldi sits atop of a maypole while Zlatan dances around him till break of dawn.<br /><br />jo<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/CeciliaVilhelm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/CeciliaVilhelm.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>PS Don't believe that this lil setback brings down a true Sweden fan. Just look at this guy, seen here with his lovely mother! <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/01/2006-year-of-vilhelm-north-korea.html">Vilhelm, nearly eight months old</a>, was pleased as can be even after the final whistle - ok, so the photo was taken a few weeks ago. Still, I know he was smiling yesterday. <a href="http://www.xprexion.com/wc1.html">Thanks JMF</a> for this awesome photo. Und ja wohl, kudos and congrats to Germany! Let's just hope the players can back up the increasing "Bye Bye Swedes, Have a Safe Trip Home, We will be World Champs" chants and claims. If not, I see major pie n' cookie baking in someone's future.<br /><br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/world+cup" rel="tag">world cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Pundits" rel="tag">Pundits</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Zlatan" rel="tag">Zlatan</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sweden" rel="tag">Sweden</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/beer" rel="tag">beer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/paganism" rel="tag">paganism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/podolski" rel="tag">podolski</a>;Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1151107138691355342006-06-24T00:58:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.935-05:00Zlatan's Midsummer Night's Dream<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Svenne1jpg.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Svenne1jpg.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">This pundit knows who'll be making the meatballs next time<br />(text reads: "<a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/12/old-swede-bad-swede-carl-barks.html">Old Swede, they're tasty</a>")</span><br /><br /></span></div>Today, it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer">Midsummer</a>. On this day the moon and stars are aligned for Swedes, showing the opponents the way to <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/06/world-cup-trash-talk.html">premature retirement in Valhalla</a>. It is also the day of the Maypole Dance.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/23/AR2006062301692.html">In less than 18 hours</a>, it’s GAME time:<a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,423294,00.html"> </a><a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,423294,00.html">Sweden takes on Germany</a> back at the Munich Allianz Arena. To remind you, we were there for the Tunisia-Saudi Arabia game and it sure looked like just the place for an epic battle.<br /><br />The German media <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/06/world-cup-trash-talk.html">continues to hyperventilate</a> about moose, kippers, meatballs, IKEA, Volvo while coming up with lame anti-Sweden songs sung to the tune of Abba's hits. Funny as is "ha ha", but at least der Spiegel is on to something with this piece:<br /><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,sans-serif;"><br /></span><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="">Thankfully the German tabloid <i>Bild</i> is on hand to assist today, and offers a handy appraisal of Sweden's top players by comparing them to household items commonly found in IKEA. "Ever had problems with the instructions for your new piece of IKEA furniture?" asks the paper. "<i>Bild</i> explains how to take the Swedes to pieces!" And, if the German players follow the <i>Bild</i> assembly instructions to the letter, then they'll surely throw a spanner in the works come Saturday.</span><span style=""><br />Take the bearded Olof Mellberg for example. He plays in defense, so obviously <i>Bild</i> thinks he most resembles a gnarled wooden cupboard -- or "Defensive Cupboard Olof" for short...<br /><br />(<a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,422948,00.html">click here to read the entire piece</a>, scroll down past the sex part....)<br /><br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,sans-serif;"></span><p>Finally, the German coach Klinsmann upped the ante by calling a potential defeat “a catastrophe”. Dunno about that – <a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,421777,00.html">going to Valhalla</a> has its advantages, sire!<br /></p><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Faxe.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Faxe.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Swedish Fan Foretells Great Victory while drinking<br />Giant Danish!? Beer. <a href="http://berlinadventures.blogspot.com/">Kudos: Erin T.</a><br /></span></span></div><br />It will be sad to see the hosts go home, I mean stay here, but it’s the way it has to be. Enough trash talk: here’s my take on a sad discussion about which strikers should play up front for Sweden.<br /><br />Everyone from fans to ‘experts’ in Sweden wants<a href="http://fck.dk/truppen/spillerprofil/?playerid=81"> Marcus Allbäck</a> to play. Yes, the guy who never scored for Hansa Rostock or Aston Villa. Conversely, they want to see <a href="http://www.zlatan.net/">Zlatan Ibrahimovic</a> on the bench. Yes, one of the most gifted players around (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search=ibrahimovic">watch the videos on youtube.com</a>), the kind of guy who puts fear into the heart of the German defenders. The same defenders who had Allbäck for breakfast all last year. So what explains this irrational thinking?<br /><br />Lots of theories abound in the Swamp’s mind. It boils down to Allbäck supposedly being a team player, more ‘Swedish’ (yes, he is blond too….) I’ve heard enough from Swedish commentators over the years and read a media analysis of the Swedish attitude to Zlatan to say there is a more than a measure of discrimination here.<br /><br />When this Swedish-born son of a Bosnian father and Croatian mother first emerged on the stage, he was the future of the Swedish game. Simultaneously, he became THE symbol of diversity – that Sweden like France, with Zidane, Henry, Thuram et al, was now emerging from the mire of ethnic chauvinism. Sadly, that assessment is wrong.<br /><br />When Zlatan plays well, when he signed for Juventus Turin, one of the best teams in the world, all the experts beat their chests for “Zlatan the Swede.” But when he doesn’t, he’s called “temperamental” and “not part of the collective” or "enigmatic". Puh-lease. Other more individualistic players on the Swedish team, i.e. the ethnic Swedes, are simply not held to the same standard. And when Allbäck failed to score for umpteen games in a row that was somehow ok.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Zlatan_Ibrahimovic_206797c.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Zlatan_Ibrahimovic_206797c.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Zlatan after scoring the goal against<br />Hungary that put them in the World Cup.<br /></span></span></div><br />What can I say? <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/11/eastern-front-copacabana-carneval-no.html">Zlatan HAS to play for Sweden to have a chance</a>. He shot them all the way to the finals in the first place. Talk about amnesia!<br /><br />No matter, there are fools everywhere, Zlatan doesn’t care. He’ll still score that goal and off Sweden goes. May the Maypole dance comenceth.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/metMajstang03.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/metMajstang03.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>jo<br /><br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/world+cup" rel="tag">world cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Group+H" rel="tag">Group H</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Tunisia" rel="tag">Tunisia</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Pundits" rel="tag">Pundits</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Zlatan" rel="tag">Zlatan</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sweden" rel="tag">Sweden</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1151056768436743622006-06-23T04:59:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.869-05:00World Cup Trash Talk<span style="font-weight: bold;">NOTE: </span>Please check out the Swamp later today, a new post featuring Viking War Paint is in the works. For now, it's off to the game! Go Tunisia...I mean, Ukraine....ehhhh....<br /><br />The First Round is almost over and we’re back in Berlin to catch the Tunisia-Ukraine game at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium,_Berlin">Berlin’s rather infamous Olympic Stadium</a>. While we’re still supporting Tunisia, we kind of hope that Ukraine pulls through. That way we get an extra day in Berlin and get to watch Spain play France, South Korea or Switzerland in Hanover. Otherwise we have to ship out early on Monday and go all the way to Cologne. Confused? Don’t worry, it’s all about how the teams finish in each group.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Fans1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Fans1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Frenzied Fans Watching Cote D'Ivoire-Holland<br /></span></span></div><br />In other news, it’s all about the trash talk! Ahead of the Sweden-England game, various English media outlets engaged in some friendly ribbing. And some were just plain pathetic, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/newscomment.html?in_page_id=1787&in_article_id=391602">read this ‘jewel</a>’ from an expat Swede, who having found paradise as a “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_England">little Englander</a>”, now writes for the xenophobic Daily Mail. From the land of the midnight sun to bottom-feeding and lapping up warm beer….way to go!<br /><br />Well, that didn’t work, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/england/5100682.stm">now did it?</a> Regardless, the German media are now engaged in the kind of campaign they usually deplore. You see, whenever England face Germany, the Brit media goes even crazier than in that Sweden article above. And the Germans get very upset, especially when the war somehow gets mentioned.<br /><br />Now that Germany is bound for their own <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla">Teutonic Valhalla</a> (i.e. Munich) tomorrow, confronted with the mighty hammers and feet of Thor and Zlatan, they are trying to talk the trash since they can’t walk the dawg.<br /><br />Sweden is being lambasted as the land of <a href="http://www.ikea.com/ms/de_DE/local_home/berlin_tempelhof.html">IKEA Kickers</a> and <a href="http://www.wasa.com/wasa/smpage.fwx">Knäckebröd Men</a>. Oh yeah, and <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article934448.ece">home of the moose attacks</a> (they got that one wrong ). This from a country that lets a crazed bear run loose and then employs supposed FINNISH! bear experts to chase it down! (<a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,422994,00.html">CLICK HERE</a> for that wacky tale!) Gott im Himmel!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Fans2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Fans2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(Relaxed) Fans of all Ages, (c) Akko</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></div>A quick look in today’s Bild Zeitung, Germany´s tabloid reveals that Germany has a plan on how to try to avoid their impending doom. <a href="http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/sport/wm2006/aktuell/06/23/klinsmann-sieg-plan/klinsmann-sieg-plan.html">Read that here</a>. It´s in German, but the graphics tell the tale and smack of desperation. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/quotes">"You think you can take us? You need a *(&%army to take us…."</a><br /><br />Finally, yesterday was another glorious day as tons of pundits had to place more orders of humble pie. Both Ghana and Australia progressed out of really tough groups (as the near brilliant Cote D´Ivoire should have done). So you’ll be hearing things like “not highly rated” or “surprising underdogs”. Whatever. Ghana <em>dominated </em>against the Czechs last week, just like Australia <em>controlled </em>the game vs. Croatia yesterday. We are not talking about flukes here.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/usa_baby.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/usa_baby.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>So while I was saddened by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062200142.html">the U.S. exit</a>, and disgusted by the refereeing, Ghana definitely deserved it. At least some face paint (thanks Leeza, and, yes, that's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix">Jimi James</a> in the background) cheered people up - and probably riled some fools!<br /><br />And there's always the beer…does it ever run out in Germany? NO!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Weisn7.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/Weisn7.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Skål, Cheers and Prost! Go Ghana, Australia and Sverige!<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/world+cup" rel="tag">world cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Group+H" rel="tag">Group H</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Tunisia" rel="tag">Tunisia</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Pundits" rel="tag">Pundits</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Ghana" rel="tag">Ghana</a>;Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1150730652037003622006-06-18T22:24:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.803-05:00Tunisia, Tunisia (and silly pundits)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/T1.3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/T1.2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The World Cup is just over a week old and the Swamp has finally found the breathing room to file a report. It’s a beautiful morning in <a href="http://www.kurcafe.com/">Füssen, Bavaria</a> and I’m enjoying one of the nicest hotel buffet breakfasts ever. The town is located near one of the most famous castles in the world, <a href="http://www.neuschwanstein.de/english/index.htm">Neuschwanstein (i.e. the Disney Castle.)</a> The castle was definitely worth seeing, but it will forever be associated with the World Cup since it’s where we saw <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4853102.stm">Ghana trounce the Czech Republic</a><u>.<br /><br /></u>Now, this is sweet on so many levels, where to begin? For one thing, it was deserved. That might not seem so sweet, but after 10 days plus of listening to pundits wax "xenofoolery" about African (and Asian) teams' – yes, they are <em>almost always </em>clumped together – lack of organization and patience, this game should seal their yappers at least for a while.<br /><br />For once, they HAD to comment on the soccer: the heavily favored, supposedly superior Europeans – <em>almost never </em>clumped together – were taught a lesson in attacking football. And mark my word; the Czech Republic <em>is </em>a good team.<br /><br />After that game we headed back here to Füssen, checked into our hotel and headed out in search of a place to watch the second game of note: the U.S. vs. Italy. Another ‘underdog’ up against a European team that could only avoid winning due to <em>force majeure</em>. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700184.html">It ended in a rather unfortunate tie</a>....The U.S. deserved better.<br /><br />Read this story to see <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_ylt=AvxuN6Si_7znGaenP1S7dtcmw7YF?slug=afp-fblwc2006gpeitalippi&prov=afp&type=lgns">how smoked up</a> the Italian coach was. A team like Italy, who claims to aspire to greatness, “underestimates” the country that pushed Germany to the brink in the 2002 quarterfinals? The Swamp was there on that late June day in Ulsan and saw with his own blurry eyes.<br /><br />Hello? What is up with the anachronistic, caught-in-a-worm-hole, alternate reality thinking of these pundits? If I know that Ghana and the U.S. can win, why do they so dearly cling on to their bags of clichés and insufferable nonsense? If they only acknowledged that this <span style="font-style: italic;">might </span>happen, they wouldn't seem so pathetic when it inevitably does.<br /><br />Non-traditional footballing nations, i.e. those outside of Europe and Brazil/Argentina, have been making an impact for decades; yet the Rip van Winkle experts seems to have woken up to their playing at this level only yesterday. I could offer you a list replete with countless stupidities uttered by these characters. Instead, I’ll summarize it in this way:<br /><ol><li>If an outsider team LOSES, it is due to deficient tactics, bad coaching and eager-beaver amateur/naive players BUT</li><br /><li>If the coach is a foreigner, i.e. from a former colonial power (e.g. Togo, coached by a German, Cote D’Ivoire/Tunisia by Frenchmen) then it’s definitely just the players’ fault AND</li><br /><li>If these players are not amateurs but well-paid professionals, they can’t be called amateurs, so “spoiled” will do. NOW</li><br /><li>If the outsider team WINS it’s either due to a pure luck, a conspiracy, food poisoning incurred by the opponents or a combination of the three.</li></ol><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/t2.3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/t2.2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>And finally, features about the outsider team are usually NOT about sport, but about “exotic” things like witchdoctors, kids playing with rag-balls, the “traditions” of the countries etc.<br />No doubt, stereotypes always have something to them and thus you could have similar stories about e.g. France or Argentina. But somehow you never do. Wonder why….<br /><br />I'll be returning to Berlin in a couple of days and will try to file a couple of somewhat more lucid reports. After attending tomorrow’s game between Tunisia and Spain, I’ll be able to comment with more authority on the Cup itself.<br /><br />Who am I really cheering for? <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800754.html">Read this and ponder....</a><br /><br />But as you can probably tell from the photos, it’s all about Tunisia…for now.<br /><br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/world+cup" rel="tag">world cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Group+H" rel="tag">Group H</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Tunisia" rel="tag">Tunisia</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Pundits" rel="tag">Pundits</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1149196118131024002006-06-01T15:06:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.667-05:00Anya: 25 Years In Front of a Camera<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/anya_2.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/400/anya_2.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Taking a breather from the usual commentary on things immigration and assorted beer suds, the Swamp today wishes to present a movie that he warmly recommends.<br /><br />"<a href="http://www.dcjcc.org/arts/screeningroom/Anyainandoutoffocus.php">Anya (in and out of focus)</a>" is directed by <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/press/2314.html">Marian Marzynski</a> and tells the tale of his own daughter's life. Basically he kept a camera around and took footage of her from the age of five onwards - they had just moved to the U.S. from Poland. While this may sound intrusive, it really does not come across that way. And that is also why I liked this movie so much.<br /><br />At the screening at the <a href="http://www.dcjcc.org/">DC Jewish Community Center</a> (thanks JJY for keeping us informed), the director himself was there to field our questions. Anya had given her consent once she understood what was going on, and together with her husband approved of the final version. He also revealed that there was "only" 200 hours of footage. Over some 30 years, this is not that much. Still to make a coherent tale could not have been easy - and in this Marzynski succeeded.<br /><br />This hard-to-find movie - there is not even <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0555871/">an IMDB entry</a> - is a simple, human tale. It speaks to so many themes: identity, growing up, diversity, parenthood, what to do with your life....It tells the story of one person's life without invading that person's privacy. And don't worry - it IS funny!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Anya.0.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/400/Anya.0.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>The Swamp particularly enjoyed the theme of growing up somewhere your own parents are not from. But like I said, it really is universal and does not focus too much on that or any other issue.<br /><br />It may seem hard to imagine that Anya herself does not feel bared. So I asked myself afterwards: a) what am I thinking about after seeing this tale of one person's life and b) would I mind?. The first answer surprised me: I thought of my own life and less of hers. She was vehicle, and for that I am grateful. But it's not that I feel like I know her.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/anya3.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/400/anya3.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>So I guess I wouldn't mind. Her father also told us that Anya never attends screenings since she doesn't want to answer questions. That would be too personal. She knows that the movie does not really show who she is, and that's why she was ok with it - for an alternative take by a ridiculous reviewer who had probably not spoken with Anya or her father, <a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2004/12/10/a_father_brings_his_daughter_into_unrelenting_focus_in_anya/">click here</a>.)<br /><br />Even if you have hated all other home videos you've ever seen: give Anya (in and out of focus) a chance. The director said there's a DVD out, but I have yet to find it online. So you best best to is to keep your eyes peeled.<br /><br />jo<br /><br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/cinema" rel="tag">cinema</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Movies" rel="tag">Movies</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Film" rel="tag">Film</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Documentary" rel="tag">Documentary</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Home+Video" rel="tag">Home Video</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Marian+Marzynski" rel="tag">Marian Marzynski</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1148586228010819792006-05-25T14:36:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.602-05:00The Immigration Iceman ComethToday the Senate looks set to finally pass the heavily debated bill reforming the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act">Immigration and Nationality Act</a>. Charles Babington has a good piece in today's Washington Post on how we got here (and where to next), <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/24/AR2006052401006.html">click here</a>.<br /><br />For more on the last minute deluge of amendments - aimed at making sure that the final version bears as little resemblance as possible to the original McCain-Kennedy proposal - I humbly recommend a previous post on the Swamp, <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/amend-palooza-orange-senate-crush.html">click here</a>, and Duke's thoughts over at <a href="http://migramatters.blogspot.com/">Migra Matters</a>, <a href="http://migramatters.blogspot.com/2006/05/we-should-take-immigration-policy-out.html">click here</a>.<br /><br />I hope to have some more on the final version of the bill - including the promised commentary on the English language amendments - posted as soon as possible. But whatever shape or size it assumes, its fate in the joint Senate-House conference committee is decidedly up in the air.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update: </span>The bill just passed by a 62-36 vote - with four Democrats casting nay votes and 23 Republicans, i.e. not a majority of them, casting yeas. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501548.html">Click here</a> for more by Charles Babington in tomorrow's paper. Also, Amy Goldstein examines 'hidden traps' within the bill, and lets some talking heads offer their two cents, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501791.html">click here</a>.<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/citizenship" rel="tag">citizenship</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/naturalization" rel="tag">naturalization</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Integration" rel="tag">Integration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/assimilation" rel="tag">assimilation</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Multiculturalism" rel="tag">Multiculturalism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/politics" rel="tag">politics</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/united+states" rel="tag">united states</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S." rel="tag">U.S.</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S.A." rel="tag">U.S.A.</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Senate" rel="tag">Senate</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Congress" rel="tag">Congress</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1148490562155083872006-05-24T11:42:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.537-05:00World Cup Beer UpdateFirst and foremost, here are two excellent articles on my king of beer types, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bock_Beer">bock beer</a>, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, click <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-bock19apr19,1,3131973.story">here</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-bockbar19apr19,1,1024580.story">here</a>. 'Tis indeed the season....<br /><br />In the wake of <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/world-cup-beers-get-over-it-already.html">the Budweiser World Cup brouhaha</a> it seems that the St Louis, Missouri brewing giant is on the offensive. Here's <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060524/ap_on_bi_ge/bud_wars_1">a summary of recent court rulings</a> on which country's German immigrants are allowed to brew Bud, Budweiser, Budvar etc and where they they're allowed to do so. It seems that the descendents of German immigrants to the Czech regions have competing historical claims with their kinfolk who once headed to Missouri. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.<br /><br />BTW, Budweiser USA is not allowed to market its beers at "Budweiser" in Germany since the Czech company <a href="http://www.budweiser.cz/">Budvar Budweiser</a> has the copyright on the name "Budweiser Budvar" there. As if that wasn't enough, German brewer <a href="http://www.bitburger.de/index.php?id=35">BITburger</a> (watch out for the annoying song) then claimed that Budweiser's nickname "Bud" was too similar to its "Bit". Puh-lease. They reached a compromise that benefits all of us: Bitburger will be the only other beer for sale at stadiums and Budweiser will sell its beer under the new name "Anheuser Busch Bud", which may confuse some folks.<br /><br />Speaking of confusion about the national origin of beers. If you ever wanted a list of beers from the 32 countries (OK, not Iran and Saudi Arabia) participating in the World Cup this summer, here's <a href="http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=51825&c=3">a brilliant and entirely subjective guide</a> from the Publican, a UK pub site.<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left">Finally, in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4989726.stm">another World Cup development</a> it seems the Bavarian company that tried to cash in on <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/12/world-cup-conspiracy-part-i.html">the worst and weirdest mascot ever</a>, GOLEO, is now bankrupt..... <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/12/world-cup-draw-plus-furry-friday.html">Now why am I not surprised</a>?<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/goleo.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: pointer; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/200/goleo.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Good-bye Goleo!</span></div></div>jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup" rel="tag">World Cup</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/united+states" rel="tag">united states</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/US" rel="tag">US</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S.A." rel="tag">U.S.A.</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/beer" rel="tag">beer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/reinheitsgebot" rel="tag">reinheitsgebot</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/immigration" rel="tag">immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Humor" rel="tag">Humor</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/microbrew" rel="tag">microbrew</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bock" rel="tag">bock</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/cryptozoology" rel="tag">cryptozoology</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1148401693452805872006-05-23T11:28:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.472-05:00Amend-a-Palooza: Orange Senate Crush<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Orange_ribbon.0.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/400/Orange_ribbon.0.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>As I write this, the Senate is voting on yet another amendment to <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.02611:">the comprehensive immigration bill</a>. You could interpret this as a positive step since <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/04/immigration-reform-cryogenics-senate.html">the bill was basically declared dead</a> around Easter. You would not be entirely wrong.<br /><br />As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201516.html">Charles Babington reports</a> in today’s WP, some kind of bill seems likely to emerge from the Senate this week. But all’s not fair that seems fair:<br /><br /><blockquote>“Backers of President Bush's bid to revamp immigration laws scored another small victory in the Senate yesterday, but they are increasingly concerned about a House Republican policy that could block final agreement even if a bipartisan majority is within reach.<br />Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's insistence that major legislation reach the House floor only if it appears to be backed by a "majority of the majority" could throw a high hurdle in front of efforts to reach a House-Senate compromise on immigration later this year, lawmakers said. Hastert (R-Ill.) has invoked the policy in blocking bills that appeared likely to win approval from more than half of the House's 435 members but less than half of its 231 Republicans.”<br /><br /></blockquote>Still, for the moment it seems more relevant to mention the avalanche of amendments that each Senator continues to introduce. To clarify, the purpose of these is to add or subtract something from the main bill - and to make the Senator look active. It’s kind of like a bulletin board full of post-it notes, and currently it looks as chaotic as can be. According to the Senate website, <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/L?d109:./temp/%7EbdapGBW:1%5b1-147%5d%28Amendments_For_S.2611%29&./temp/%7Ebdn5iq">there are currently 147 amendments</a> on the table.<br /><br />The latest one, offered by <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/23/MNGIOJ0G7T1.DTL&feed=rss.news">Senator Feinstein of California, introduced the notion of an ‘Orange Card’</a> – playing off the good will of the ol' <a href="http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/services/residency/">Green Card</a>. The color orange is a beautiful one and given that it’s the color of some U.S. prison jumpsuits, far too many <a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,414228,00.html">German sun worshippers</a> (Read that article! Seriously!) and a TOTAL confusion <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_ribbon">when it comes to ribbons</a>, perhaps it is time that it took on a different, simpler meaning.<br /><br />It was meant to provide a simple, one-tier path to citizenship for the undocumented - and supposed to have some kind of bar code!? Senator Feinstein tries her best to be a hardliner at times, but in this case she's on to a good, common sense idea. You see, the current version of the bill proposes dividing illegal immigrants into three arbitrary categories: those in the U.S. for five years or longer, up to two and a half years, and those less than that. Different rules would apply to each group, with the latter basically being told to leave ASAP. It goes without saying that besides being arbitrary, it will be very hard to prove which category someone belongs to. We are talking about the undocumented after all....<br /><br />I used the past tense above on purpose as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052300179.html">the amendment was just rejected</a> (37-61). Too bad - in my book her one-tier path to citizenship beats the three-tiered one - but this was done in the spirit of saving the overall bill. The three tiered approach was a major component of the compromise that saved the bill from an early burial.<br /><br />Lots of other nuggets have already been up for debate, e.g. the use of <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/20/ap/national/mainD8HNQM5O0.shtml">the National Guard</a> on the border - passed with a whopping 83-10! Republicans from Utah dissenting as did the Vermonters; and the building of more fencing along the Southwest border – passed by 83-16, led by the efforts of the junior Senator from the non-border state of Alabama, <a href="http://sessions.senate.gov/">Jeff Sessions</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/BP.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/400/BP.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/mixed-view-on-border-troops-plan/2006/05/16/1147545326300.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">Yee-ha! Here's come the Border Patrol</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></div>National Guardsmen and Fencing: sounds ominous. But these are concessions to the restrictionists that will not totally decimate the rest of the bill. The Guard will "only" provide temporary logistical support to the Border Patrol, and there will be <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/03/fence-me-in.html">no fence à la Robert Samuelson</a>.<br /><br />Another amendment by <a href="http://bingaman.senate.gov/">Senator Jeff Bingaman</a> from the border state above all others, New Mexico, is a very unnecessary one indeed. Its intent is to further limit the number of guest-workers and it also looks likely to pass. This too is meant to assuage the nativists. But all it <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>means is that more people will remain in the shadows as 'illegals' instead of becoming legal 'guest-workers'. Great, I mean, they won't leave....So this numerical cut - from 325,000 to 200,000/year- serves no real purpose other than catering to delusional restrictionists.<br /><br />In the next few days, I plan to post something about the most controversial amendments, two competing ones that both passed last week. They deal with the role of the English language and as such touch upon the crux of immigration, assimilation and what it means to be American. Plenty of hysteria and sanity to relate here. At a later stage, I hope to compare this with becoming e.g. German or Swedish.<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Germany" rel="tag">Germany</a>;<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/citizenship" rel="tag">citizenship</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/naturalization" rel="tag">naturalization</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Integration" rel="tag">Integration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/assimilation" rel="tag">assimilation</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Multiculturalism" rel="tag">Multiculturalism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Europe" rel="tag">Europe</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/politics" rel="tag">politics</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/united+states" rel="tag">united states</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S." rel="tag">U.S.</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S.A." rel="tag">U.S.A.</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Senate" rel="tag">Senate</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Congress" rel="tag">Congress</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1148341118911875942006-05-22T12:38:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.408-05:00World Cup Beers: Get Over It Already!Since the week is young, the Swamp offers the first installment in a new series:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Brewy Mondays</span><br /><br />This is prompted by an article in the Times of London. It reports on what some see as blasphemy: <a href="http://www.budweiser.com/">Budweiser</a>, one of the main sponsors of the World Cup is actually going to be given near-monopoly rights when it comes to sales of….yes, beers in the stadiums. Hello? Is this news?<br /><br />Roger Boyes writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>“The Germans are furious that Budweiser will be the official tipple for the soccer World Cup. The American lager has secured a near-monopoly of beer sales inside World Cup stadiums and within a 500m radius of the grounds, supplanting more than 1270 domestic breweries. And what most upsets the fans is that Budweiser - advertised as the "King of Beers" in the US - fails to meet the ancient German standards for purity, which stipulate that beer can be brewed only from malt, hops and water.<br />Budweiser uses rice in its production process and therefore fails to qualify as a beer in the German sense. Budweiser's World Cup status is a slap in the face for a country that attaches such importance to beer production. When Germany was a patchwork of principalities and duchies, a sponsored brewery was seen as the stamp of independence. "Most pubs don't even stock it," groaned Walter Konig, of the Bavarian Breweries Association. "Bavarian beer should be available in a Bavarian stadium - Munich - for the first kick-off.”<br /><a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19226168-13762,00.html">Click here to read the entire brouhaha</a><br /></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/AB.2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/AB.4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Immigrant Merchant of Impure Brews?<br /></span></div><br />Furious? Asleep for the past few years is more like it. Crikey, <a href="http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/kingofbeer1.shtml">a German immigrant</a><a href="http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/kingofbeer1.shtml"> to the U.S.</a> (that's him, Adolphus Busch, to the right) founded Budweiser. Be proud if anything - or at least accept a share of the blame. Tastes change, palates adapt, new recipes develop. Ask someone from Szechuan what they think of Kung Pao Chicken made in Berlin. Or a Stockholmer about the meatballs served up at IKEA in Vancouver. Actually, they are kind of tasty.... 'tis all so relative.<br /><br />Look, <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/12/old-swede-bad-swede-carl-barks.html">I love beer</a> and consider myself a happy amateur when it comes to the art of <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-on-joschka-and-of-course-white.html">sniffing out and quaffing a good brew</a>. But this saga is more than a little ridiculous. Every German city has countless stores that sell gallons of good beer that you can then drink in public spaces - as long as you behave - so I really see no cause for concern. Especially when it's really feigned outrage at this late hour in the day. The World Cup starts in less than three weeks.<br /><br />Yesterday, I was at a baseball game with a friend and we had a couple of <a href="http://www.millerlite.com/">Miller Lites</a>. Gasp and Yikes! What WAS I thinking? Is it my beer of choice? Number 324 on my all-time list? Not even. But it is still beer…kind of. As we watched <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/21/AR2006052100601.html">the rekindled Washington-area rivalry</a> play out between the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals, people seemed to be enjoying themselves. Despite the ghastly 'paint thinner' on tap. Go figure.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/trogenator%20w_%20glass.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/trogenator%20w_%20glass.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Da Troegenator, Brethren of Budweiser!<br /></span></div><br />Later on we found a premium tap serving <a href="http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/306/1212/">Blue Moon Belgian White</a>. An American beer, one of hundreds that are just hunky dory. And if I may recommend another, I'd pick <a href="http://www.troegs.com/trogenator.htm">the Troegenator</a> out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The king of <a href="http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/35">doppelbocks</a> on this side of the pond! In case you were wondering: the Troegenator is named in honor of the original German double bock, <a href="http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/124/387">Paulaner’s Salvator</a> – most bocks in Germany end in –ator in deference to this magic brew from Munich.<br /><br />The fuss in the article surrounding <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_Law">the anno 1516 Bavarian Purity Law</a> (also inaccurately called the German Purity Law – Germany came about some 350 years later) is just that: a hullabaloo. <a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Epatto1ro/reinheit.htm">Read this article to find out why</a>. Good beer is good beer. Bad beer is bad beer. Simple.<br /><br />So get over it, leute and folks. Your crocodile tears are anything but pure. But if you’re looking for a good guide to German beer, <a href="http://www.germanbeerguide.com/">click here</a>. Just don’t ruin the games by whining about Budweiser (or anything else for that matter). OK?<br /><br />jo, who will be enjoying other beers and probably the occasional overpriced Budweiser while supporting Tunisia!<br /><br />PS <span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Please read these L.A. Times articles on bock beer, click <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-bock19apr19,1,3131973.story">here</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-bockbar19apr19,1,1024580.story">here.</a><br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup" rel="tag">World Cup</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/germany" rel="tag">germany</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/united+states" rel="tag">united states</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/US" rel="tag">US</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S.A." rel="tag">U.S.A.</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/beer" rel="tag">beer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/reinheitsgebot" rel="tag">reinheitsgebot</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/immigration" rel="tag">immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Humor" rel="tag">Humor</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/microbrew" rel="tag">microbrew</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1147975110116094202006-05-18T07:58:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.277-05:00Henke Goes to Paris; plus World Cup Safety<span style="font-weight: bold;">Update:</span> 22 May 2006. In today's WP, Craig Whitlock <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052200710.html">reports on the upsurge of violence in Germany</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Henke2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Henke2.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Yesterday in Paris, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Larsson">Henrik Larsson</a> the most lauded Swedish soccer player of his generation <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060518/sp_soccer_afp/fbleurc1espeng_060518004219">finally won a major championship</a>. Playing his last game for <a href="http://www.fcbarcelona.com/">FC Barcelona</a>, he won the Champions League, the top club competition in Europe – and perhaps the world. Henke, as he is affectionately known, came on with half an hour to go and set up both of Barca’s goals against <a href="http://www.arsenal.com/">Arsenal of London</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060517/483/05dbf6a361e54c48bfdd52d931fc62c5"></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"> <span style="font-size:78%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060517/483/05dbf6a361e54c48bfdd52d931fc62c5">(c) Michael Probst AP</a></span><br /><br /></span>His teammate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronaldinho">Ronaldinho</a>, generally considered the best there is, had this to say about Larsson: "At Henrik's age many players announce their retirement from international football but no-one I know his age is at the great physical level Henrik is at right now. He could play at the highest level for a long time."<br /><br />Henke used to play for <a href="http://www.celticfc.net/newsroom/news.aspx?id=%272006-05-19_1007gk%27">Celtic FC</a> in Scotland and here’s what a reporter from a Glaswegian paper said this about yesterday’s heroics. Under the headline “Talismanic Larsson provides parting gift for Celtic and Barça”, James Morgan writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>“HENRIK LARSSON's decision to leave Celtic for Barcelona two seasons ago was vindicated last night after the Swedish striker transformed the Champions League final with a second-half contribution which wrote his name into the history books of another famous European club. Sprung from the bench in the 61st minute, the 35-year-old, who was playing his last game for the Catalan giants before a return to his homeland with Helsingborgs, turned a game which was slipping away from Frank Rijkaard's cosmopolitan side. Larsson, as ever, displayed his usual humility afterwards and preferred to concentrate on the effort shown by his team-mates."It was a tough match and the whole team deserve credit for the win," he said. "It was an unbelievable way for me to finish my career at Barcelona. I have had a fantastic experience here in my two years, with two league titles and now this. It's amazing."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/62263.html">Click here to read the entire tribute</a></blockquote><a href="http://www.theherald.co.uk/sport/62263.html"></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Henke1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Henke1.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.expertfootball.com/history/world_cup_1994.php"><span style="font-size:85%;">Back in the Olden Days, c. 1994!</span></a><br /></div><br />As one of the first visible minority Swedes (Swedish mother, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Verde">Cape Verdian</a> father) to break into the homogenous national team, Henke is a pioneer of sorts. But above all, he is just a good guy, great player and a talismanic presence for any team he blesses with his humble nature. In July – after playing for Sweden in the World Cup in Germany this summer – he will return to his native <a href="http://www.helsingborg.se/Main.aspx?id=5">Helsingborg</a> in southern Sweden. The season tickets are already sold out. <a href="http://www.hif.se/clubpreseng.asp">Welcome home, Henke!</a><br /><br />Speaking of the World Cup and tying into <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/succinct-in-160-characters-or-less.html">a previous post on the Swamp</a>, today’s International Herald Tribune has a good column by Richard Bernstein. Here’s an excerpt:<br /><br /><blockquote>“With the World Cup only a few weeks away, people here are asking this basic question: Is Germany safe?<br />According to the German police, in their annual crime report released last week, the country is, as Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble put it, "one of the safest places in the world.<br />But it wasn't safe for Ermyas Mulugeta, a German national of Ethiopian descent who was beaten senseless, allegedly by neo-Nazis, in the fashionable former East German city of Potsdam a couple of weeks ago. Mulugeta, who, the police say, has now awoken after about three weeks in a coma, was assaulted at the Potsdam train station by two bottle-wielding thugs who called him "nigger," the police have said.”<br /><br /><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/18/news/europa.php">Click here to read the entire piece</a></blockquote><br />It seems <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060518/sp_soccer_afp/fblwc2006gergermanyracism_060518115808">a former spokesman for the German government</a> has sounded warnings regarding potential no-go areas in Germany. And naturally the powers that be have castigated him for soiling Germany's reputation and trying to ruin the World Cup party. C'mon....<br /><br />I really don’t know why some folks are in such denial that they would jeopardize the safety of foreign visitors, not to speak of their own fellow citizens. What’s wrong with recognizing that there is both a low crime rate (pat, pat on the back of German society) AND in some areas a greater discomfort, real danger even, for those who are obviously members of a minority?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/Henke3.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/Henke3.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060509/sp_soccer_afp/fblespswegbrlarsson_060509191912">Henke, pictured with his family, becoming a Member of the British Empire</a><br />(for his service to Scotland)<br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060509/ids_photos_sp/r1611783867.jpg">(c) Gustau Racarino, Reuters</a><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />jo<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/racism" rel="tag">racism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xenophobia" rel="tag">xenophobia</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Germany" rel="tag">Germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Berlin" rel="tag">Berlin</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/BBC" rel="tag">BBC</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup" rel="tag">World Cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Deutschland" rel="tag">Deutschland</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Barcelona" rel="tag">Barcelona</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Champions+League" rel="tag">Champions League</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/soccer" rel="tag">soccer</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Football" rel="tag">Football</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Henrik+Larsson" rel="tag">Henrik Larsson</a></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1147839240438332392006-05-16T16:52:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.210-05:00As I was Saying: Assimilation Policy....BadIn <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/its-process-stupid.html">my last post</a>, I was going on about how assimilation is a process that cannot be crafted into a workable policy by starry-eyed bureaucrats. And if you pick up tomorrow's edition of <a href="http://www.thehill.com/">The Hill</a> (a Washington daily about the shenanigans in Congress) you will see more of the same. Not by yours truly but courtesy of <a href="http://www.oxan.com/">Oxford Analytica</a>. Under the headline "<a href="http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/OpEd/051706_oxford.html">Assimilation Policies Carry Risks</a>" the anonymous OA writes:<br /><blockquote><br />"The integration (assimilation) models currently utilized in these (EU) states have a variety of structures, but they share some key similarities that may impede their effectiveness.<br /><br />Integration processes often reflect one-way integration, in which the immigrant is expected to take the initiative to accomplish the level of integration that the state prescribes. However, in practice integration occurs as a two-way process: the state changes along with the immigrants it accepts.<p><span class="body">However, this two-way process also can produce a backlash. Majority populations frequently are unhappy with the idea of their national culture changing. It is for this reason that integration programs are often portrayed by states as one-way processes, and why the majority population appears to change less quickly than a country’s immigrants..."</span></p><p><span class="body"><a href="http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/OpEd/051706_oxford.html">Please read the entire piece, click here</a><br /></span></p></blockquote><p><br />This is why I usually lambaste European countries: they created a problem, i.e. lack of assimilation; and are now selling a toxic concoction, i.e. bad "policy", as some kind of panacea. For whatever reason, they never seem recognize the fundamental differences between the Swedens and Germanys of say, 1906 and 2006. I mean, assimilate to what? To what the minorities are already part of? Seems redundant, no? Or to a subjective version of e.g. Germany that, at best, only existed in the past?</p><p>To me, it seems that it is <span style="font-style: italic;">the majority population</span>, and at least many politicians, who are the ones who need to get on the assimilation train. Folks, it left Trans Central some three to four <span style="font-style: italic;">decades</span> ago....<br /></p><p><span class="body"></span></p>Backlash risks occuring by stigmatizing those suddenly expected to assimilate overnight, preferably by becoming as Western (?!) as possible. Any little difference previously seen as normal or even "exotic" could now be seen by the majority as evidence of lack of assimilation. And the backlash will be reinforced when the desired results of these misguided intentions are not forthcoming.<br /><br />Lastly, I just wanted to mention that the OA piece also addresses the contrast between the U.S. and European approaches to assimilation:<br /><blockquote><br />" The state may either proactively or passively seek the successful integration of immigrants. For example, the United States has no formal immigrant-integration policy, other than a citizenship test requiring the demonstration of basic English language skills and knowledge of U.S. history. <p>Evidence suggests that integration is more successful when governments make education programs accessible and provide individualized integration plans.</p> <p>The recent rise in perceptions of insecurity and deep social divides between immigrant and existing populations are prompting immigrant integration reform in most European states.</p> <p>Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland and parts of Belgium now all mandate integration....</p><p>Assimilation policies place the impetus on immigrants, asking them in essence to change their identity. However, making assimilation mandatory may actually impede the integration process it is designed to facilitate.</p> <p>Indeed, integration is not achieved merely by labor-market and community participation; it also requires that the immigrant identify with and have loyalty to his new country. Mandating integration compels a speed of assimilation which may impede the developments of loyalty."</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br />Mandating assimilation!!!! - what would Voltaire, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift">Swift</a>, Twain, <a href="http://www.mencken.org/">Mencken</a>, Wilde, Colbert et. al. write about such a Wonderlandesque concept? I laugh at that thought while crying about the rest of this sorry saga.</p><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Germany" rel="tag">Germany</a>;<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/citizenship" rel="tag">citizenship</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/naturalization" rel="tag">naturalization</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Integration" rel="tag">Integration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/assimilation" rel="tag">assimilation</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Multiculturalism" rel="tag">Multiculturalism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Europe" rel="tag">Europe</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/politics" rel="tag">politics</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/united+states" rel="tag">united states</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S." rel="tag">U.S.</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/U.S.A." rel="tag">U.S.A.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1147640756544263632006-05-14T08:58:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.148-05:00It's the Process, Stupid!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/citizenshipDland.jpg"></a><br />Some may think I was a little harsh on Germany in <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/european-immigration-contortions.html">my last post</a>. At the very least, I might have been more succinct. But there are just so gosh darn many angles to cover...<br /><br />Accordingly, here's a link to the NYT's reporting on the new naturalization procedures for those wishing to become German nationals. I think Ms. Dempsey gets it right when she writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>"In a decision that reflects the widespread debate toward the European Union's immigrant population, the interior ministers of Germany's 16 states Friday agreed for the first time to a package of measures aimed at setting new guidelines for obtaining citizenship.<div style="visibility: hidden;"> </div> The decision, made during a special two-day meeting in Bavaria, is a major change for a country long hesitant of accepting that there was a need for an integration policy despite Germany's 6.7 million immigrants make up nearly 9 percent of the country's population..."<br />(<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/05/news/germany.php">click here to read the entire piece</a>)</blockquote><br />She does a good job of tying it into the general immigration debate in Europe ( for more Swamp reporting click <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2005/11/why-thuram-is-right-about-situation-in.html">here</a>, <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/03/before-immigration-reform-hits-gucci.html">here</a> and <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/02/offensive-cartoons-expose-munafiqs-and.html">here</a>), seeing both similarities and differences among the EU states, not to speak of non-EU countries like Norway and Switzerland.<br /><br />But I have to raise at least some doubt regarding the term "integration policy". This expression raises the hope that the decades-long neglect of immigration and immigrants can somehow be resolved by policy, with a little social engineering. She is right in using the term since it's all the rage in Europe. But I would not call this "policy".<br /><br />Unsurprisingly, this hoop-la is about creating the impression that politicians have acted, that they have done something that will then lead to a concrete result. And now it's laurel resting time. Wrong. Assimilation (integration is just another faux term for the same thing) is not about <span style="font-style: italic;">policy</span>, it's about <span style="font-style: italic;">process. </span>And as such it takes time and requires patience. Having a normal labor market that allows job creation and permitting, even encouraging, people to become citizens can facilitate the assimilation process. But it cannot be made to happen.<br /><br />Back in the olden days, i.e. until very recently in all Western countries, there were 'assimilation policies': people were told to do this and become that. These policies succeeded only in their cruelty, stupidity and inhumanity, and failed in every other regard, especially in creating citizens out of immigrants. Let's hope the good folks of Europe know their own history.<br /><br />But what do you know, here's a positive note to sign off on! On Tuesday as I was half-way across the Atlantic, <a href="http://www.berlin.de/ba-neukoelln/presse/archiv/20060509.0950.39590.html">new German citizens</a> were being sworn in near my Kreuzberg home. In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuk%C3%B6lln">neighboring area of Neukölln</a> - a rather impoverished working class part of the former West Berlin with an interesting history of immigration, read the Wikipedia link - 54 immigrants from 15 different countries became Germans.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/1600/citizenshipDland.2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1548/1843/320/citizenshipDland.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.netzeitung.de/img/0032/192732.jpg">Becoming German</a>. </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Neukölln, 9th May 2006.</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></span>Forget that the headlines were the usual moronic ones, e.g. on <a href="http://www.n24.de/politik/inland/?a2006051011412955125">the 24-hour news channel N24</a> "Naturalization in Multicultistan: The Federal German Eagle and the Half Crescent". Neukölln is a part of Germany last time I checked. According to N24´s reporter Annette Bräunlein, 18-year old Ahmet Ügrenci "hid his (Muslim) half crescent medaillon" before the ceremony. Whatever, Anette....maybe you should hide your prejudice instead.<br /><br />Anyway, Ahmet is now German. Too bad I missed it, after they all sang the national anthem there was a little party in the City Hall! Congrats, dude!<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Germany" rel="tag">Germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Berlin" rel="tag">Berlin</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Deutschland" rel="tag">Deutschland</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/citizenship" rel="tag">citizenship</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/naturalization" rel="tag">naturalization</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Neuk%C3%B6lln" rel="tag">Neukölln</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Kreuzberg" rel="tag">Kreuzberg</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Integration" rel="tag">Integration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/assimilation" rel="tag">assimilation</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Multiculturalism" rel="tag">Multiculturalism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Europe" rel="tag">Europe</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1147464221194286422006-05-12T09:03:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.074-05:00European Immigration Contortions<span style="font-weight: bold;">Update: </span><font><span style="font-style: italic;">Check out the shout out to Dr. Frist, plus other goodies! </span><br /><br />Have no fear; the swampy silence was not due to any drainage or lack of inspiration. It’s just that I had an intense week with a family weekend visit to Berlin (and Potsdam), catching up with forlorn friends on that side of the pond, arranging things with a new subletter and finally hopping onto another flight across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Blue">Le Grand Bleu</a>. And then I had a great birthday in <a href="http://oha.ci.alexandria.va.us/">Olde Towne Alexandria</a> with the lovely JJY, followed by a roof-top extravaganza in <a href="http://www.thereefdc.com/about.html">Adams Morgan</a>.<br /><br />The flight over was less exciting this time, no Tempelhof, no stops in Brussels and Chicago etc. But nowadays both Delta and Continental have direct flights from Berlin-Tegel, and it’s nice to board a plane and wind up on another continent without having to transfer. Other than a one-year experiment in 2000-1, Berlin has not had direct flight to the U.S. since way before the Wall fell. A provincial capital city indeed.<br /><br />Anyway, just in time for my return, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051100688.html">the Senate appears set to resume debate on immigration</a>. And on Monday, President Bush is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051200641.html">making yet another push for reform</a> by giving a speech to the nation. Say what you will, but he sure ain’t listening to the populist nativists on this one. In fact, ol' Lou Dobbs (<a href="http://www.anchorman-themovie.com/">the angry anchorman</a>) lambasted Bush on CNN the other night (<a href="http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/5/9/215117.shtml">click here</a>).<br /><br />I will return to the U.S. debate soon enough, but for now I should try to keep my promise by quickly referring to some goings-on in Euroland and beyond. From my daily immigration updates, it is crystal clear that many countries are pre-occupied with this thorny dilemma: from<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060512/wl_canada_afp/canadaimmigration_060512184725"> Canada</a>, to <a href="http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A198534">South Africa</a> and <a href="http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/712796">New Zealand</a>. The latter is actually accepting “public submissions” ("so whatyathink, mate?") on this topic. Good or bad? Different at least!<br /><br />These countries have the advantage – to varying degrees – of at least acknowledging some history of immigration. In Europe, however, there is major denial. So when anything immigration related comes up, it has the ring of some kind of belated revelation: “Why, what do you know, we have some immigration. Perhaps we need to change some laws, institutions…attitudes even.” Easier said than done: witness the German citizenship debate.<br /><br />In 2000, thanks to the efforts of the freshly elected center-left government, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law">Germany finally received a new nationality law</a> – one to supersede the antiquated bloodline law from 1913! It was a compromise – necessary after the conservatives mounted a populist campaign against the original proposal, folks lined up to sign petitions against the proposed law or as some put it “where can I sign against the Turks?”<br /><br />The compromise at least put Germany more or less in line with most countries, even if the absolute rejection of multiple citizenships was a nod to the xenophobes (and a sign of lacking confidence in the assimilatory nature of German society).<br /><br />So how can there still be controversies and debates over six years later, anno 2006? Without getting all wonkish, I’ll just say it has to do with the German federal model in tandem with the usual hand-wringing. Each state has the right to administer the naturalization process, and thus 16 different models have emerged! This is unthinkable in both the federal U.S. or far more centrist Sweden and France. Nonetheless, the chance of getting a passport in southern Bavaria is much smaller than in northern Berlin. So the state governments – in the current anti-immigrant climate – decided to hash out a uniform model. Did somebody say lowest common denominator....<br /><br />The Swamp <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/03/dutch-in-1910-plus-german-citizenship.html">has already reported</a> on the kind of test that some crackpot politicians desired. Well, it didn’t come to this, but the reactionary forces did their best to add an oppressive/dissuasive element to what really should be a celebration. Now there will be a language test of sorts and helpful hints of WHAT NOT to do in Germany. It is sad, but ultimately not surprising, that such a test becomes the opposite of its supposed model in the US.<br /><br />Here, the test has some tough questions (and the background check is no cake walk) but in the main, it emphasizes what is positive about the U.S., rubbing home what you CAN do. To repeat, the German approach appears to be emphasizing what you CANNOT do.<br /><br />So, after decades of not really allowing people to become citizens (at best, there was an arbitrary procedure after a 15 year minimum wait) there is now a grudging tolerance, saying “Ok, if you must”. Nice.<br /><br />During my Potsdam walk with my family, I literally stumbled upon an impromptu street memorial for a victim of racist violence. Before I got back, Ermyas Mulugeta was <a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,412696,00.html">brutally attacked</a> late one night. He almost died, but thankfully he is now no longer in critical condition. Instead, of dealing with the obvious, <a href="http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,412786,00.html">some officials played the Rodney King game</a>. They emphasized that Ermyas was a big man and suggested that he started the fight. The fact that he was nearly dead at the time they uttered their <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48119-2005Mar18.html">Fristesque</a> pronouncements (see below) seemed incidental to these idiots.<br /><br />Later, the federal Interior Minister, the usually sanguine <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Schauble">Wolfgang Schäuble</a>, said that ‘blond hair and blue-eyed people' were also attacked. He was simply trying to relativize the whole thing ahead of the World Cup, worrying more about bad publicity than Ermyas life. And bad publicity is just what he got for saying something so asinine.<br /><br />His counterpart in the state of Brandenburg, whose capital is Potsdam, the rarely reflective <a href="http://www.brandenburg.de/sixcms/detail.php/15310">Jörg Schönbohm</a>, also entered the fray by immediately casting doubt on any racist connection to the near murder. This despite the fact that on Ermyas voice-mail, he was making a call to his wife when he was attacked, racist slurs by two other voices can be heard.<br /><br />Beating the odds, Ermyas actually became a German citizen. But in the reporting on this tragedy he is usually referred to as a black man, an Ethiopian who happens to possess a German passport etc. No one knew how assimilated he is, how he felt about his new home. People were worried about the World Cup. Activists are using the World Cup as a backdrop for all kinds of protests, but they mostly have to do with the '<a href="http://www.killercoke.org/">evils of globalization</a>'. There are other causes, my friends. Like realities in the place you live.<br /><br />In <a href="http://wooleyswamp.blogspot.com/2006/05/succinct-in-160-characters-or-less.html">my last post</a>, I referred to a debate on the BBC. A member of a Black Germans organization was on the program because he had drawn a map of places not to go in the Berlin area if you weren’t white. World Cup folks were none too pleased. As I walked past the memorial in the middle of beautiful Potsdam on a sunny day, I wondered about that map and knew that this part of Potsdam was not on it.<br /><br />As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051100987.html">this AP piece</a> emphasizes with brutal honesty, Europe is light years far from being able to deal with diversity. May the World Cup bring people to Germany, who will show folks <em>there </em>another way. I’ll be there.<br /><br />More on the citizenship test this weekend, including a report from a ceremony in my part of Berlin.<br /><br />jo<br /><br /><br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/racism" rel="tag">racism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xenophobia" rel="tag">xenophobia</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Germany" rel="tag">Germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Berlin" rel="tag">Berlin</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup" rel="tag">World Cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Deutschland" rel="tag">Deutschland</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/citizenship" rel="tag">citizenship</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/naturalization" rel="tag">naturalization</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18756331.post-1146663316458810552006-05-03T08:04:00.000-05:002006-11-03T14:40:32.011-05:00Succinct in 160 characters or lessAs many have no doubt noticed, the Swamp loves (ab)using the unlimited space in the blogosphere. But here's a short tale of how even yours truly can keep it clean n' simple.<br /><br />After coming back from a run yesterday, I flipped on the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/index.shtml?logo">BBC World Service</a> and they were discussing racism in Germany ahead of the upcoming <a href="http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/">World Cup</a>. It seems that activists want to put out a map for Berlin and other cities, indicating which areas are unsafe for foreign visitors. The organizers are not happy - worrying about bad PR etc. I mean, really....what comes first? Safety or some glossy postcard Wonderland reality?<br /><br />What can I say? Well, as I was cooling down, I sent an SMS/text message to the all-purpose BBC World Service number +44 7786 206080:<br /><blockquote style="font-family: times new roman;">"There is major denial re: minorites and immigration here. Try being accepted as a non-white here. At best you'll be exotic or (at worst) a victim."<br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/2006/05/iran_and_racism_at_the_world_c.html">Read other, far wiser, comments from the program here</a><br /></blockquote>Text messages - at least on my ancient DJ Kai Sony phone - can be a maximum of 160 characters, this one was around 145.<br /><br />I sent it 5 minutes before the program ended and what do you know: the presenter read it out to round off the show. (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/">listen here</a>, right sidebar, Tuesday program, last 15-30 minutes)<br /><br />Would I advise any one I know and care about to go to the areas concerned? No! Do I go there? No! Would I advise them to come check out the World Cup? Yes! Is Germany generally safe? Yes!<br /><br />More on the events that caused the BBC to take up this subject soon.<br /><br />jo<br /><br />Subjects: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/racism" rel="tag">racism</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/xenophobia" rel="tag">xenophobia</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Immigration" rel="tag">Immigration</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Germany" rel="tag">Germany</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Berlin" rel="tag">Berlin</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/BBC" rel="tag">BBC</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup" rel="tag">World Cup</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/World+Cup+2006" rel="tag">World Cup 2006</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Deutschland" rel="tag">Deutschland</a>; <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Diversity" rel="tag">Diversity</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1