A Brazilian

I have always wondered about this and never gotten a real answer. This comes close but doesn't really tell us why.

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Rub It in

If you didn't know, that is where I grew up. Although there is no place called "Destin Beach." Maybe he meant to say "From the beach in Destin." But I wander from the topic. This isn't just near where I grew up, or like where I grew up. Nope, this is it. I can tell you how to get to that spot on bicycle from the batch plant on Joe's Bayou. That is local. Or should I say, that is hitting close to home.

I suppose this video has been making the rounds recently. The reason it is so popular, I would guess, is that it features an irresponsible mother allowing her children to swim in an oil spill. That is pretty dumb, but it isn't the dumbest thing I have seen on that very beach. Tourists swim when red flags are out and snow birds jump in in the dead of winter. Spring breakers take videos from their hotel rooms of people swimming with sharks, unaware that they are present, and laugh. This of course before they get drunk and fall off of balconies. I figure these people paid for their vacation and are by God determined to have them. I don't like them but I can understand them. Driving down to the Gulf is one of the vacations that fit into their budgets. They save up and they come down and they want to buy cheap t-shirts and splash in the water. Sharks and currents and temperature and oil be damned.

(A brief aside to this woman's raw stupidity: For a brief few years when I was young, the house next to ours was rented to a bunch of real south Alabama rednecks. The older brother would practice juggling hatchets in the front yard and they all had ADD and wanted to grow up to be Baptist preachers. One day the youngest son, threw a rock, which must have been when they rebuilt the street because we don't have rocks in Florida, and hit me in the eye. I ended up in the hospital and sported an eye patch for a week or so. But, as I lay their collapsed and crying, the father ran out of the house and said in all earnestness, "Rub some sand in it." So no this woman doesn't surprise me.)

But there is dumber by far than any of these things going on in this video and sadder by a long shot. As the Michael Jackson movie says, "This is It." This is what years of saying no to drilling and "Save our Shores" gets you in the end. No more cutting school to head to the beach. No more welcome home shrimp boils or church fish fries. No more saying to people, "Yeah, this is a nice beach, but I am spoiled, mine is the best in the world." No more "hey look there are dolphins out today." Or giant manta rays. Because, even the most ardent, carbon conserving environmentalist can have that part of their lives cut out like a rotten wisdom tooth if someone else, someone with more power is willing to gamble all of those things for a private jet and a yacht to race.

My grandmother always talked about how it wasn't as rough for them during the Depression because they always had the Gulf. It wasn't like the economy was going to stop them from catching fish. So people with enough pluck and mobility moved to Destin and started over, or at least got by. And now, in our new Depression? Well, our patrimony was confiscated and sold on credit to people who didn't need it anyway. I have always argued that even though I believe in cost benefit analysis and environmental economics, I am, when it comes down to it, a Sand County Almanac environmentalist. Water parks aren't fun for me and I don't mind a long walk if there is something to see. I don't think I am that special in this respect. I just wish people with power would realize that oil spills aren't an excuse to stop drilling, they are a reason. That pollution isn't a silly buzzwords that hippies mutter between joints, it is something that gets in the way of our weddings and our homecomings and our funerals and our church benefits and our jobs and our futures.

If someone told people that they had to burn a sea turtle or shoot a dolphin to get their SUV to start they wouldn't have the guts to do it, but Americans are cowards by proxy, we are good at a distance. I can't understand that abstraction but I am sure I have made it myself. Me, who doesn't own a car but will fly across the Pacific and throw away plastic bags. Maybe I should do my penance and walk down to the river and strangle a duck. "Just rub it in." She says laughing.

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Maradonna - Live is Life

You know, for all the ways that this guy is a ridiculous boor, I have to think that we are better off having him around. What a nutter.



And here he is at 45, doing it again.

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One Goal

I'm guessing you have already seen this. It is pretty amazing. I was watching in the middle of the night at my house. The stream went out and I could only get one in Arabic. The announcer fell silent during the goal and the point didn't go up on the scoreboard so I thought it was going to be disallowed. I called Ed who's stream was 3 minutes late and so had no idea what I was talking about.

I will agree with what I said before, a hard task I know to confirm yourself, and state that I don't believe in the idea of a "national character" but that something like that is expressed by teams in the World Cup. I am again glad at the face that the USMNT presents. Before I commented on their diversity and back stories but again, a real American playing style is showing itself. Hard charging, direct, and tenacious. I do think their is something to the way teams like Italy, France and to a certain degree England have crumbled mentally and emotionally while the USA in the face of reffing miscues and defensive blunders have remained mentally strong and fought back. The U.S. brand of football gets citicesed as not technical or creative, but I like it. It is the kind of football I grew up playing and the way I tell people to play. I think it is a style.

I should point out that despite the reactions in the USA being moving, when I talk about wanting the USMNT to gain respect, really don't care so much about within the US, although that is nice, I want football fans around the world to understand how the game is played in The States. Moreover, that it is played in The States.

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USA vs. Slovenia

So much free time, so little bloggeration. Could it be the overtaking of secret projects. The undertaking? Who knows. Could it be that I am avoiding writing about BP and the Gulf so I can avoid thinking about it? Sounds promising. Fortunately we are deep in the thrall of the World Cup, the good old Mundial. And here I sit with something approximating month long jet lag from watching too much of the bouncing, bouncing ball.

There are many disparate opinions out there on the USMNT's performance against jolly old England. I was happy with the dog fight. What was expected? Pretty soccer. No. That wasn't ever happening. People will protest that Onyewu was coming too far out of the goal, but with all the randomness involved, who knows? He was also stopping plays from developing. The British press, ready to lionize its....lions, instead retreated into their misery, attributing the entire debacle to their keeper. But it wasn't poor Green and his kitchen mitts. Was it not Gerrard who let Deuce jerk him like a chicken to get that meandering shot off? It was. Lion indeed.

Next up, Slovenia. I small Slavic country that plays a lot like the Americans, only slower and with less size and power. Don't mistake me, they can win. Anyone can win. We have seen how this tournament is going. There is a large outcry for Torres's inclusion in the starting 11. I count myself among that chorus, but I see the arguments to stick with Clark. If Slovenia goes up a goal early, they will park the bus, but the Club on it, poor sand in the gas tank and put it up on cinder blocks. No fun for anyone.

Against this kind of defense, Dempsey's ball control and ability to take on defenders will be front and center. Donovan can take on defenders but it is usually at speed and I don't know how much space will be created. I would like to see Buddle in and taking shots on goal, but Altidore has showed the ability to run past stationery center-backs.

I will have to run directly from our show tonight to some bar to catch the game. I am just looking to get through the show and go. I think that the USA should be able to pull this off, but you never know when your opposition has a strong keeper and a disciplined defense. If the USA can get this, I like their chances to go for goal differential against Algeria while England faces Slovenia.

I want to start referring to Torres as "Pocket Xaxi." Is that okay? Give me the credit. Let's do this.

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Showtime!

Well, here we are. The rosters are out. The chips are bought. I think I am staying in so that I don't weep in front of strangers which ever way this goes. This is a hard emotional attachment to explain but I very clearly remember its beginning, jumping up and down on my couch in 1994 as the USA dropped Columbia. It was the most American I had ever felt and I loved yelling for my country and meaning it.

I was fortunate enough to be in the stadium in Suwon in 2002 when Portugal fell and I sulked through 2006. And here it is. The U.S. versus England. It doesn't determine the whole cup. It doesn't mean everything. When Ed and I got back from Korea, full of all the exhilaration of history, our English friend brushed it off, "But that was just a fluke really, wasn't it?" Of course my stake in this game isn't so petty, but it would be nice for those of us who grew up playing the game to not have to put up with condescension and derision from those who grew up watching it on TV and therefore feel more knowledgeable. Hubris is a fat straw and it is usually America that is having to bend over and suck hard at it. Not in this case. I, as usual, wish the English team well. I very much want them to win the World Cup. I think bursting their little bubble will be just the thing to put them over the edge.

My prediction?

USA 2 England 1

It could go any myriad of ways. It could get sloppy and out of control. It could very easily be a tie. Somehow I just see it happening.

Prepare your stanky leg.

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A Goal, A Ghost

A great piece by ESPN.

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