wowee zawiya

Libyan Rebels Singing Campfire Songs

2011-04-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (Revisited)

2011-03-11T17:28:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, some anonymous country station between DC and Norfolk turned back the clock a decade and spun Toby Keith's ass-kicking anthem, "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)." The song, Keith's direct response to September 11, flew up the charts, reaching country's number one spot by the beginning of the following summer. The song itself perhaps needs little introduction; Keith has a bold (some might say inane) message: you hit us, and now you're going to pay.

I spent the better part of my senior year of undergrad listening and studying this song as part of my "comps" (a sort of senior thesis) on the politics of commercial country music. This was three years after the song had come out, and my perspective (like others', I suspect) then was a little different. Afghanistan had practically come and gone -- we won, right? -- Iraq was on everyone's mind then. Toby Keith's promise to "light up their world like it's the Fourth of July" presumably had already happened. At the time, the song still spoke to a residual anger over 9/11, a feeling that military action had been and continued to be completely necessary. This was, of course, before the majority of Americans concerned themselves with the actual act(s) of waging war and/or the populations upon which that war was to be waged. So, because Keith doesn't come right out and say it, up exactly whose ass was he threatening to put his boot?

Given references to Al Qaeda and the Taliban elsewhere in his foreign policy songbook, it's likely some nebulous combination of the two and a little Saddam Hussein as well. Yet times have changed. The Taliban have been pushed out of Kabul, but they're still alive and kicking quite violently both in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan. Keith sang, "Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list / And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist"... well, Tobes, they're still at the top of that list. And Secretary Gates has readily admitted some kind of reconciliation with the Taliban is possible. Not exactly the kind of uncompromising destruction promised in song, is it now?

Keith opens his tune with this little ode to honoring our veterans, the only part of the song that holds up to much serious inquiry. Back in 2002, Keith was the poster boy for a particular strand of patriotism that demanded uncritical support of full engagement in the occupation of two foreign countries and the financial and military support of a handful more (Keith is no Tea Party Republican, mind you). I think we've grown up a little since then, our vantage point on the wars and the world has grown considerably more nuanced. We've been humbled by the limits of American military might, and, for all that initial bluster, we've proven rather unwilling to stomach the sacrifices necessary to win. Keith just talked like the playground bully. You hit me, and now I'm going to pummel you. Oh, except that pummeling will take over 9 years and billions upon billions of dollars I don't really have. And, oh, while I pummel you I'd like to nurse you back to health too.

"Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" set us up with unreasonable expectations, ones our military and diplomatic corps could never live up to. I'd be curious to hear what Keith thinks about that now, if he does at all.

I try to briefly break down what's going on in Egypt for my buddy

2011-02-01T19:25:00.000-08:00

A friend and I were catching up the other day and he asked me about Egypt. We were running out of town, so I sent an email and quickly recognized it was really a blog post. Who sends these kinds of long-winded, I'm-an-expert emails to their friends (ones that aren't about sports, I mean)? Apparently this guy.

Anyway, my take on what's gone on in Egypt:

The long story short, we've been helping prop up a highly un-democratic "republic" for thirty years. Since the military staged a coup against the British-backed monarchy in 1952 (the Free Officers' Movement, it was called), Egypt has had three presidents, all former Air Force officers. Mubarak is just the last of those. He's now 82. He's spent the last few years grooming his son Gamal as his successor, while simultaneously denying it because he's not sure how his cronies would feel about a non-military guy taking over next. One of the biggest opposition parties, the Muslim Brotherhood, is probably one of the more organized Islamist parties in the Arab world. But don't let the Fox News folks confuse you: they are democratic, do not use violence, etc. They do believe in a greater role for Islam in government and they believe in pluralism and participation. They're banned from participating in elections and every so often state security forces will show up at an MB gathering, bust some skulls, and arrest some Brothers. But they also arrested Ayman Nour, a liberal politician who has consistently opposed Mubarak and run against him. Not that it matters: Mubarak typically wins with at least 85% of the vote.

I'm skeptical to attach too much to the events in Tunisia, but I do think its hard to deny the timing. The Tunisia revolt really emboldened everyone in the region, and the protests are only growing. My guess is, frankly, Egypt won't be the last authoritarian leader to go down. It sent a message that a big popular revolt really could take down a government, and even though Egypt is a little more open than Tunisia in terms of what was possible to discuss in public, there was really no avenue for most people to speak up or advocate for change.

In my opinion, the protests and Mubarak's pending ouster are good things, but only if a real popular vote comes to fruition. Unlike in Tunisia, there is actually some political party infrastructure, and there are influential potential leaders outside the Mubarak regime and the NDP (his party). El Baradei is one of those -- the former Atomic Energy agency head and Nobel winner -- but, for my money, he's played the role of king-in-waiting a little too much. It's as though he's waiting to be appointed Egypt's democratic savior. But now it looks like there's some real multiparty consensus to have him represent popular interests in a transition to power, so it's hardly my place to editorialize on the matter.

I think the US tack has been pretty good on the whole. Calls to completely cut aid (by Senator Paul, no shock there) are a little ridiculous, though I think its due for a major slashing. That $1.5 billion a year is basically rent: we pay them that much because they are close to Israel. They keep weapons from getting into Gaza (sometimes) and they promise not to attack Israel, keep the Suez open, and help us out with our anti-terrorism efforts. We pay similar type "rents" to other countries (Morocco is a biggie too) but nothing on this kind of level, at least nothing without major oil reserves. I think we need to cut how much money we give, reconfigure where our aid money actually goes within any Egyptian administration, and withhold future funding until a democratic election with outside observers is held and those people take power.

We shouldn't be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. As Gibbs said the other day, we don't pick the candidates on the ballots, we just make sure the elections are fair and just. Seems right to me. I don't think it's too late to change our course on Mubarak and back real democratic reform. We're only two years into Obama's term, and I think a fair number of Egyptians and Arabs elsewhere would respect the change in policy as the correct one. It wouldn't get rid of all the skepticism, but I have trouble seeing how a big policy change wouldn't be, at the very least, appreciated.

Of course, once Mubarak goes down (and he will), the possibilities are endless and Obama will have a true foreign policy mess on his hands. Normally, I'd say that if Obama didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all, but I do believe this is an opportunity to capitalize on, though its going to require a big re-thinking of our "pro-democracy" priorities. We might want to get on that sooner rather than later.

The most important thing to happen in the Middle East in 50 years, huh?

2011-01-31T19:22:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to a talk at George Washington University, put on by the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS). It was about the coming "revolution" in Tunisia -- which, we were quickly told, was not a revolution -- and featured Christopher Alexander of Davidson College and John P. Entelis of Fordham University. As an aspiring North Africanist myself, I was naturally there. And if there are American academics -- more accurately, political scientists -- qualified to really comment on Tunisia, it would be these two guys.

Any person well versed in Middle East Studies might have noted just how exceptional this was: there aren't a lot of Tunisia experts here in the States. Of course, did that stop the Middle East policy/political science community (especially here in DC) from sharing their barely-informed positions on the matter? Hardly.

But here we had two bona fide Tunisia political scientists (would've loved to hear from a historian or an anthropologist, but they generally don't get invites to these sorts of things), explaining what was going on. Some really useful stuff, too. For one, that the creation and strengthening of a real political party apparatus is, in the long run, more important than the rewriting or restructuring of the Constitution. But the one that really stuck with me, the one I wanted to go and tweet right away (I hadn't yet returned to tweeting), was Entelis' claim that the uprising in Tunisia would be "the most important thing to happen in the Middle East in fifty years."

Now this was last Tuesday at lunchtime, when the very first marchers were moving into the center of Cairo for their very first protest. We knew it was coming from word circulating online -- that so-called "Twitter Revolution" -- but there was nothing to suggest the kind of upheaval on the way.

No one's really talking about Tunisia these days though. It's been a week since Entelis made that comment, and this all raises good questions about the actual connections between Arab states. The Maghreb -- North Africa west of Egypt, loosely defined -- has long been considered peripheral to US interests in the region, at least as far as the bulk of the Beltway policy community is concerned. As it fades back to its second tier status again so Egypt can rise to the fore, I wonder how we'll remember these past events in Tunisia. I saw tweets the other day that said that history will remember the wave of democratic revolution in the Middle East beginning in Sidi Bouzid, the town where a young Tunisian worker burned himself in protest of police confiscating his illegal vegetable stand.

I tend to believe connections between countries in the Middle East are over-dramatized and overemphasized; after all, the glossing of the various cultures and societies in the Arabic-speaking world is part of the dominant narrative about the region. That is, it's a key part of inherent suspicions about Islam that allow pundits (let's differentiate between them and real experts) to condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead, I often try to emphasize the multiplicities between the various countries in addition to the multiplicities within one. For example, a Muslim university professor in Tunis may differ greatly from a Muslim university professor in Alexandria or Aleppo, just as he or she may be very different than a bank clerk in any of those places. To say nothing of the ways the actual practice of Islam varies across the spectrum in these countries.

In general, we use the "Arab world" or the "Islamic world" as the subject of our analysis too uncritically. We should question the logic -- a good geographer would call it "the imaginative geography" -- that allows us to think of Tunisia and Egypt as the closely connected. How much do you care about Canadian politics? And we even share a border with them.

I still believe all that -- it rarely hurts to think critically about your most basic assumptions -- but the Tunisia-Egypt revolution question has thrown a wrench in the works. The fact that Twitter and Facebook exist and spread the word of the protests seems not so important. What does matter is how people feel and articulate the personal connection and how they see their lives and their identities in flux based on events pretty far away.

Arabic verbs

2010-11-13T05:04:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd share a moment of frustration with my Arabic training. The hardest thing to get my head around to this point -- depending on how you look at it, roughly 3 years into my study -- is the use of verbs. I still for the most part structure sentences around their English translations. When I'm writing or composing, I'll try to adapt this to how Arabic is actually constructed and review my errors. But when speaking, it's hard. Arabic verbs work on forms. Let's take a really basic form that most learn pretty early: to study, or darasa. Its root is a standard three letters (d-r-s). If you want to say I studied, you use the first, most basic form. But if you want to say "I made myself study," you don't say "I" "made" "me" "study". There's a specific form for the self-reflexive form, and another one that means you did it with some considerable effort. In other words, if you wanted to say "I really forced myself to appreciate...", that has its own single word. And I'm terrible at this. If any Arabic students are out there who have a strategy for this one, let me know. I'm clueless.

In defense of the Strokes

2010-10-22T06:10:00.000-07:00

Working on some Arabic and was using Albert Hammond, Jr.'s first solo album, Yours to Keep, as background music. I was really enjoying it and decided to head back to the Strokes back catalog. Part of the inspiration was an overheard conversation between two housemates here in Fes, one a British student asserting that they usually liked "indie" but "not like Strokes-indie". I tried to defend them. Kings of Leon they are not.

Maybe this video is a good indication of what people don't like. It's so saturated with classic rock and roll cool that it nearly drowns itself. The video has nothing to do with the song, but rather just perpetuating the idea that the Strokes spend most of their time in dive bars drinking long necks and smoking cigarettes. Nevermind that there's hardly a place where smoking inside is legal these days.

Still though, do I wish that I could spend a late afternoon watching soccer and playing pinball at a dingy pub with Slash and the guys from Guided by Voices? As a matter of fact, I do. The Strokes have always been, were from the outset, too cool for school. I'm not sure I would've liked them any other way.

Illegal hits

2010-10-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5706132

I just read this article and watched this video. I know I intended to blog mostly about Morocco, etc., but this caught my attention and I think is worth mentioning.

Schlereth Sounds Off here about 'illegal hits' in the NFL. He seems mostly right. You've got to protect the players to some extent, and it's tough because the game has gotten pretty damn fast and physical. So often the defensive player is charged, but the extremity of the impact seems to me -- amateur physics alert here -- to be caused equally by how fast the offensive player is moving. Granted, unsuspecting, stationary offensive players get smashed and injured and concussed, but these are collisions, right?

Second thing, Schlereth -- or "Stink" -- makes an analogy here to soccer. He suggests that if we don't allow these kinds of smashing hits, then what we have is soccer. Pretty inaccurate. It's more like rugby, where you have to wrap your arms around the ball carrier when tackling and can't go high. I'm not advocating an NFL rule change, but I will say that rugby fans aren't left wanting for more high impact collisions. There's still plenty of smashing and violence on the rugby pitch.

Also, I generally think the "soccer is for wussies and therefore un-American" is a little played out. It's a pretty worn analogy and was pretty thin to begin with. Is there a single soccer player who could survive the entire 11 minutes of an NFL game when the ball is actually in play? Maybe a very, very small few (excepting of course the kicking positions). But the lack of violence isn't THEE reason Americans "don't like" soccer (which they increasingly do). It may definitely be what we love about football, but violence is absent from baseball, for example, and it's still loved. For very different reasons.

I do fear for the future of soccer -- and not just in America -- because of the "wussiness". It's not the diving so much that's a problem, because drawing fouls is a part of the sport just as much as it is basketball. Is the grimace on the face of a driving small forward as he gets hand checked really necessary? What sets soccer apart, unquestionably, is the feigning of injuries, which is an abomination, in my opinion. Fair game to go down with a slight shove and try to get a penalty to tie the game in the last minute. Officials should be able to tell the difference. But why roll around on the ground and try to get another guy tossed? It's too much. It ruins it for me, and there are a handful of highly talented players who I will never appreciate because of this.

As for the NFL, they've got to seriously consider this issue in the offseason. They need major rule changes if they're going to keep dealing out the fines they are. I'm not advocating either way at the moment, but I don't think the fines are justified. Frankly, as a fan to whom 50k is a massive chunk of money, it's actually kind of insulting that a guy gets docked that kind of pay for a hit that the league, its TV coverage, and its merchandise all wholeheartedly endorse.

Indiana Jones and the Medina of Fes

2010-10-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

Just kidding. But seriously, some station on the satellite is playing an Indy marathon this week. We're on day 2. Just wanted to make a few notes:

- You'd think, after all these years, that Indy might've found a slightly less high-maintenance, slightly more adventurous female companion.

- All Indiana Jones movies must contain at least one scene featuring parallel moving vehicles, going at high speed, in which the passengers switch places during a skirmish between the two. Last Crusade has at least two such scenes. Also on this note, I'm not sure there's a character in the history of film better at running his adversaries off the road in a variety of vehicles.

- When Indy beats someone up and takes their costume/uniform, that person will not die, but they will not wake up for some time. They will never be heard from again, however.

All for now. Fes is good. Missing home a lot but it's going well over here.

New P***ographers cancelled at Calvin College

2010-09-15T01:38:00.000-07:00

You may have read about how Calvin College in Michigan cancelled an upcoming New Pornographers show on campus because of the band's name.

I have to say, I was hoping to be more entertained by their reasoning and official statements (the school's, I mean), but really, it sounds like they basically said, "Listen, we know their music is inoffensive, we tried to tell our influential faculty/boosters/parents/whomever that same thing, but they were unwilling or unable to listen. We apologize for their ignorance."

Check it out here: http://pitchfork.com/news/40053-christian-college-cancels-new-pornographers-concert-because-of-the-bands-name/

Live from Fes

2010-09-14T04:02:00.001-07:00

I promised several folks I'd update from Fes, Morocco, where I'll be for the better part of three months. I'll be studying Arabic at ALIF (www.alif-fes.com) and hopefully doing a little research to help with PhD applications.

I arrived on Saturday night and lugged a truly massive backpack -- there should've been a picture -- across the Ville Nouvelle from the train station to the Hotel Savoy. I rinsed out my shirt in the sink, changed into some shorts, and went for a stroll before settling down to eat tajine kefta at Cafe 24/24, which lured me in with promises of La Liga games being broadcast in Arabic.

The next day, Sunday, I decided to take on the infamous Fes medina, the old walled city. I've toured the medina four times, by my count, and each time had literally no idea where I was going. Each time was with a guide, however, which makes life quite easy but also means you inevitably end up stuck in a few rug shops on the way. This time I had the Rough Guide map, and it more or less got me to the spectacular blue-tiled Bab Boujeloud in relatively short order ("bab" = door or gate in Arabic). Its the most famous bab in Fes, and the most common medina entrance. I walked one of the two main drags for a while before setting off down a side street. Once you commit to turning off, you have to accept that you will most likely not find your way back. Streets make odd turns, and ones that appear to go due south, for example, will inexplicably turn east and continue. It's also quite hilly so you can't always see what happens at the top of the crest or where the street goes.

It is, however, truly spectacular and in all my medina walks there is nothing like it at all. I eventually was dumped out on the far south side of time, well beyond the Bab Ftouh and made my way around the city, eventually ending up under the Borj Sud, a watchtower where guides take tourists to get a full grasp of the size and scope of the medina. I ate a picnic lunch in a small cafe before leaving the medina. It was packed with men of all ages glued to the TV, watching the C movie "Drive" (seen it, anyone?), drinking sodas and smoking kif in the back corners.

I'm finally settled in to what is basically a dorm: an old late 19th century villa converted to 14 rooms with shared showers and a kitchen, filled with students at my language school. I have a double but no roommate as of yet. Its quite nice though -- we have wireless so Judy and I have been able to skype regularly, the kitchen is stocked with cookware, and there's a TV with literally 300 channels including Tamazight (Berber) TV, TV Chad, and a bazillion from Egypt and the Gulf. MTV Lebanon. Dubai Horse Racing. You name it. All in Arabic (save BBC World and a couple French ones).

Off to class today. I'm the only person in my section, we'll see how that goes. Looking forward to getting to work.

And I can't close without a Skins mention. Yes, I saw the highlights on ESPN.com and Judy filled me in on everything. Unbelievable. I wore my hat with pride yesterday.

Superchunk doing "In Between Days"

2010-08-08T19:37:00.001-07:00

Still following the AV Club's Undercover series? You oughta be. Not a bad one in the bunch that I've seen.

Superchunk doing the Cure's "In Between Days" might be one of the best. Check it out, and one little chunk of food for thought I never picked up on: Wilco kinda rip the intro, just before the first verse, on "Pot Kettle Black".

Superchunk covers The Cure

Wouldn't mind if I could find a little electrocution

2010-08-07T11:07:00.001-07:00

It is just under 90 degrees here on historic Capitol Hill. Eastern Market's full of tomatoes sure to make Coach Rich Brooks envious, and here's a song for the occasion: Nada Surf's cover of the Bill Fox song "Electrocution."

It's breezy, got just enough guitar drive below the thick harmonies, a propulsive beat that owes a hat tip to the great Jody Stephens.

Enjoy:

Nada Surf - "Electrocution" (Bill Fox cover)

Baltic-ization

2010-07-28T14:54:00.001-07:00

related to balkanization, but not really:

Baltic-ization: when one regularly confuses a group of adjacent countries that one has great difficulty telling apart.

This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

2010-07-25T08:56:00.001-07:00

an oldie, but a classic, especially this time of year:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Live blog of a taped Germany-Spain game

2010-07-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

This game has long since ended, but I'm watching at home for the first time and happy to say that I've managed for the second day in a row to have no knowledge of the result whatsoever. A difficult task but I've survived.

Minute 7 - An innocuous looking pass slips behind all the Germans and Villa gets there first but shoots right at Neuer. Does Germany want the ball? They've barely had it for thirty seconds so far.

9 - "still at the sparring stage of this semifinal". Martin Tyler's excellence is still striking, deep into the tournament. Let's hope he gets the final and we don't have to listen to Harkes.

11 - Alonso nearly had the assist of the tournament trying to split the center backs for Villa there. Just missed, Iniesta nearly cleaned up the scraps with some quick footwork.

13 - What a chance for Puyol. Driven cross from Iniesta was perfect, diving header from the well-coiffed defender flew over the top.

15 - Pique needlessly gave up a corner, and Casillas barely flapped at it. Germany got a second and his punch was more decisive that time around. Germany's first real attack.

25 - Pedro played a ball to Villa in the box. He was well defended but his movement so far has looked as sharp as usual. Good runs from him. Germany haven't really come into the game yet.

30 - I liked Alonso's strike from distance there. A good effort. You've got to try.

31 - Did Schweinsteiger always play such a holding role? Admittedly I've been tuned out, but didn't he used to be more of an attacking mid?

32 - ooh, a blast from Trochowski just tipped wide by Casillas. Spain look kinda shaky defending set pieces, but otherwise they've been well organized.

44 - game gotten a little chippy but on the whole its been very well played, very clean, not a lot of gamesmanship. Thank goodness.

45 - Some quick moves in the box from Pedro but he can't quite lose his defenders. Should've just ripped it. Kinda typical Spain there.

45 - whoa whoa should that have been a penalty? The ref was on the spot. Lets see the replay. A busy last minute - a Spain counter attack and a rip from Pedro, right at Neuer who held on. Halftime.

SECOND HALF
53 - Villa fired a lame side footed shot just wide. Best real chance for him so far.

57 - Amazing work from Spain. A couple shots fired in and Iniesta gets to the goal line and laid it across but no one could reach it.

59 - Oh Pedro with a grass cutter to the right corner and just wide. Spain are on top of them now.

60 - Pique cuts out a good low cross, the end of a sharp counter from Germany. They attacked quickly there. A cross finally materializes and Klose volleys over, awkwardly. Still a half chance and not a bad one. The game opening up a little.

61 - Trochowski off for Toni Kroos ("another of the kids in the squad").

62 - What a run by Ramos and what a ball from Alonso, just a few inches too far. Podolski tracked him pretty well too.

63 - What's with the turf? It looks thick, clumpy, and soft. Not ideal for a World Cup semifinal.

67 - Mertesacker has defended very well. No crosses are getting by the lanky central defender.

69 - Terrific move, maybe the game's best chance. Podolski lobs to the back post, Kroos the sub volleys with his side foot and Casillas saves. He kind of scuffed it and it wasn't too difficult for the Spanish keeper, but he should've done better. Kroos back on the ball for a FK but its cleared.

73 - GOAL. Puyol. Who would've thought? Xavi's corner was inch perfect and Puyol flew in like only he can and smashed it into the net. A great run and a smashing finish. A deserved one-nil lead. An interesting last 15. Let's see what happens. Don't count out the Germans. Course you already know what happened because this is three hours later.

90 - FINAL. 1-0 Spain. Sorry, got overwhelmed with the game and couldn't comment. A very good, very tactical game. In the end, Germany perhaps didn't play as well tactically against Spain as other, less talented teams. You have to think its partially because of their talent -- that they thought they could play their game and not have to 'park the bus' -- that Spain could impose. No one is going to out-possess Spain.

Requiem for a World Cup campaign

2010-06-26T14:38:00.001-07:00

It was a tough ending to a good tournament for the United States. My biggest fear going into the Ghana game was that, with all the hype and excitement of the England game, the Slovenia comeback, and the Algeria drama, the casual American fan would tune in to today's game, see us lose, and say, "Wait, we lost to Ghana? Ghana? Seriously?" I worried casual fans wouldn't quite understand that 1) Ghana is a quality team and 2) simply making it to the Round of 16 is an accomplishment for the USA, no matter how easy their draw may have been.

Ghana is good, just as good as the US if not better. The fact that they were missing their best player (by far), Michael Essien of Chelsea, speaks to the fact that they've got a lot of talent to choose from. They're also quick, fast, and strong. But most important of all, each and every one of their major players plies his trade in a top European league, some with the very best clubs on the continent. Like some of our guys (Dempsey, Howard, Bocanegra, Bradley, Cherundolo), they are all accustomed to the speed of play of the World Cup.

I'm not saying I was incredibly impressed with Ghana - I wasn't. After a flying start, they never really pressed their advantage. It did seem they had their tactics right in the first half. Their five man midfield meant they could both crowd Bradley and Clark (witness the first goal) with a two on three in the center while also keeping incredible width on the flanks. Each time they switched the ball from one side to the other, Donovan and Dempsey, who had been trying to help defend the three central midfielders, had to sprint back out to the sideline to help defend the flank. All this running early on certainly didn't help keep them fresh when extra time rolled around.

As for the US, again with the early goals. Maddening, truly maddening. You would think Bradley would emphasize this to the point of scaring his players into not making mistakes. After such serious lapses in the first three games, I would personally send my team out with the express goal of keeping a clean sheet for twenty minutes. Don't take too many chances, smash it upfield when necessary, get behind the ball, whatever. Just make sure that it is 0-0 after 20 or 30 minutes pass.

But no. Ricardo Clark, poor guy, decided to try to beat a man at midfield with very little defensive cover, coughed it up to Kevin-Prince Boateng, who carried upfield with a lot of confidence and speed. His low shot was good, but Howard should always have his near post and he knows that. Not totally his fault, but he should've done better. It still took the US another twenty minutes to really start playing, and from then on out we had the better of the chances if not the possession. Bradley again covered all kinds of ground, but his final pass was just a few inches off. We deserved the penalty and then had three golden opportunities to take the lead, but wasted all of them. We don't have a great finisher. We don't really even have a very good one, and we paid for that.

So what's the final verdict? It's a respectable showing, a deserved 2nd round berth but no more. I thought the quality of soccer, on the whole, was good. They passed better than they had in previous tournaments and created their own opportunities in a way they usually don't. I think we are one of the sixteen best teams in this tournament, but just barely. Certainly no better than Ghana.

I do hope fans stick with the Cup, with the national team, and with the MLS. What we're seeing now is the fruits of the MLS - basically every one of these players grew up in the league and cut their teeth there. It may not be the English Premier League, and it may be boring as hell to watch a 1-0 game between Kansas City and Dallas on a Thursday night in front of 4,000 fans at Pizza Hut Park. But the quality is always improving, and the young players you see now will get a chance with the national team.

I live on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, where there are literally a dozen pubs and sports bars within a five or ten minute walk. Each and every one of them was packed to the gills for every game the US played. Anyone who watched the Algeria or Slovenia game in a bar or restaurant will tell you what an incredible atmosphere it was. Soccer may never pass the big three (or four) in this country, but can't question its growth. I just hope it carries on and that people take a chance on the MLS and our national team over the coming years.

Goal of the World Cup So Far

2010-06-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

The Round of 16 is shaping up, with two pairings set: Uruguay vs. South Korea, Argentina vs. Mexico. The latter's a reprise of 2006's overtime Round of 16 matchup ending with Maxi Rodriguez's stunning volley:

Anyway, no definite choice for thee goal of the World Cup so far, but I sure did like David Villa's solo effort to open the scoring against Honduras in a vital 2-0 win for the Spanish. Villa later scored a deflected second and then missed a penalty (wide with the goal gaping) that actually could end up being pretty huge for if/where Spain end up in the next round. Without further delay, enjoy:

When Alexi Lalas speaks...

2010-06-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

...do you all wonder what Ruud Gullit, Juergen Klinsmann, and Steve McManaman think?

Do they think to themselves, "Who the hell is this guy?" or "Should I know you from somewhere?"

In his career, Lalas was a player of considerable heart and limited ability, known to be "good in the air" but little else. He was indeed the first American to play in the Serie A for Padova -- at the time, quite a feat despite the club's lowly stature. He scored an infamous goal to beat England 2-1 in a friendly, though, if memory serves, he scored with the back of his head. And by that I mean he had literally turned around backwards to head the ball.

On TV, I find him to be terribly annoying. He speaks with authority but doesn't really have any. His off-the-field expertise has been proven by basically running a highly talented LA Galaxy team -- a club that gets the MLS does every possible favor to help succeed -- into the ground with bad signings and poor coaching.

Gullit's kind of an agreeable guy, but McManaman is pretty opinionated. Lalas' opinion of the English isn't very high -- perhaps he's not over getting snubbed after a tryout with Arsenal way back when -- and they're always on the verge of clashing. Still, he's the only one of the analysts who never analyzes and he's completely bought into the hype that the US team are poised to do huge things.

Anyway, an open-ended question but one I'm curious about: what do the guys in the studio with a pretty tremendous soccer pedigree think of Lalas? And would anyone else rather be listening to Wynalda? I miss him, and we don't get Fox Soccer Channel anymore either.

Brazil - Ivory Coast

2010-06-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

About sixty minutes through the DVR of Brazil vs. Ivory Coast, a game I had marked a few months ago as one to watch in the first round.

The Ivory Coast (I'd do "Cote d'Ivoire", but I can't find the circonflex on blogger) started well but were undone by one of the better goals of the tournament from Luis Fabiano. Kaka set it up, and it was one of the few positive things he did for the entire first half. For the first 20 minutes it seemed like every time he touched the ball, a CIV defender flew in and stuck him. But his pass was nice and simple and put Fabiano through.

Minute 66, Brazil up 3-0, and Elano gets raked in the shins and pulled off -- for Dani Alves, who has to be the best player not starting in this tournament. Can you think of another better? Given that, it's hard to see how Brazil won't make it at least to the final. Dunga's brought a new focus on defense and "efficiency". Lucio is a great center back, Juan does a good job too, and Julio Cesar is apparently the best goalkeeper in the world though I'd personally rather have Tim Howard or Casillas and I think probably still Friedel too. Biased, maybe. So Brazil can sit back, stroke the ball around, stay organized, and then rely on the tournament's most skillful front three in Kaka, Robinho, and Fabiano to counterattack and get a goal. Score that first one -- as with against the Ivory Coast -- and the opponent's plan changes, the game opens up, and Brazil can go be Brazil.

We'll see what happens against Portugal, but my guess is that they rest a few guys and still come away with at least a tie.

As for the Ivory Coast, they've really done themselves a lot of harm with such a heavy loss. As with South Korea or South Africa, a one goal loss would've been acceptable. Allowing so many goals though is likely to come back and bite them.

USA-Slovenia, England-Algeria

2010-06-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Had the pleasure of watching both Group C matches in full today. My thoughts:

- The phantom foul on the goal was on Bocanegra. I'm not saying it was right -- it wasn't -- but I'm nearly positive that's what the ref saw. He hooked his arm around the defender and I think from the ref's angle it looked like Bocanegra was the aggressor.

- The inflated expectations for this game, the size of Slovenia (the nation-state), and the fact that no one could name a single Slovenian player are what have us disappointed in not getting the W today. The fact is that Slovenia is not that bad and we're not that good. Most of their players play in top European leagues. They made it through a tough qualifying process. Not the toughest qualifying group, but would the US have picked up 20 points against Poland, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and San Marino? Somehow I doubt it.

- The US is not that good. Our backline is slow and prone to really bad position play, especially Gooch and Demerit. We've gotten better at keeping the ball, but we make so little out of our possession. Not enough shots on goal. Slow starters. Tactically naive. Not sure what Bradley was thinking with the Clark for Torres switch. I like Torres, but it really underestimated our opponent to think we'd just own the ball all game.

- I thought Edu was awful in his time on the field. Very shaky on the ball.

- McNamaman was wrong and Lalas was right: England just aren't that good. The English game suits these players, and when they play with their clubs in Europe, they're surrounded by more talent, more sophistication, more creativity. I do think Gerrard is really trying to push them, to make those surging runs, but it hasn't happened for him (beyond the 5th minute of the US game). Lampard and Rooney have been worthless and, frankly, look kind of disinterested. Carragher's yellow was a blessing in disguise, as he has looked a little out of his element (which pains me to say as a 'pool fan); he'll sit the third game and I think Upson would be a better option (I'm not the only one).

- Algeria will be every bit as difficult as Slovenia was. If I'm not mistaken, if Algeria win and England and Slovenia draw, Algeria go through. I'm not sure, but if England win I don't think Algeria can advance, even if they win (they'd be tied with Slovenia, who beat them head-to-head).

More later. Gonna be a wild final day in this group.

Best Goal of the World Cup So Far (Day 5)

2010-06-15T11:05:00.001-07:00

Who would've guessed that after 5 days of matches, we'd have seen only two goals from outside the penalty area and both of those (Slovenia's winner against Algeria and Dempsey's now-infamous shot that England keeper Robert Green spilled in the USA's 1-1 draw) were pretty ugly. Sure, they all count, but everyone wants to see a blast from thirty yards fly into the net beyond a diving goalkeeper.

Worse still is the lack of goals. Those who know me know that I love defense. In football, in basketball, and in soccer, I appreciate a tactical chess match where two sides punch each other in the face a few times in a low-scoring, intense affair. I thought the Mexico-South Africa game was a fine game - not high scoring, but with plenty of attacking and great last ditch tackles by defenders. All these complaints about the ball being used, the playing surface, and the vuvuzelas in the crowd add up to one thing: quality is down. The quality has been poor. Of the big teams to play so far, only Germany has truly impressed. England and France were downright disappointing, and the Netherlands were unusually dull yesterday despite the attacking talent they have to offer.

I'd still take South Africa's opening goal as the tournament's finest, simply because of the sheer perfection of the far upper corner ("upper V", as we used to say) finish. But for the sake of posting some new material, I'm posting my runners-up below:

Cacau - Germany 4, Australia 0

Alcarez - Italy 1, Paraguay 1

US - England prediction

2010-06-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

Writing this just minutes before they kick off.

Alexi Lalas is nuts and predicted the awful Greeks to advance to the second round. He just called 2-1 to the Yanks. I wish. I'd love to see a draw, but I think England is too talented. Remember, this is a team that didn't seem to have any chemistry problems as they coasted through qualifying. Capello is about as tactically shrewd as they come, and England will be ready to exploit US weaknesses, of which there are many (3/4 of the backline, holding midfield, possession play in the final third).

England 2, USA 0. I don't want to see it happen but I think it will.

The key is for the US to make it to the thirty minute mark scoreless. No early goals allowed. I'll also wager that Bradley gets second guessed on this Onyewu-DeMerit partnership, but we'll see.

Goal of the World Cup (so far)

2010-06-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

Not too much to choose from, thanks to a lame French team and an even lamer Greek team.

But the best of the bunch so far is, beyond doubt, Tshabalala's opener for the host South African team. A wonderful past and an inch perfect finish, the kind of finish kids dream about.

Have I done this before?

2010-05-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'm finally done with the semester and back to blogging, which I've been looking forward to. I hope the coming months involve a lot of posts, particularly with the World Cup on the way and some interesting road trips ahead for JGC and I.

Here's a little video for you loyal readers out there. I pose the question: is this the most joyous moment in the history of pop music the twenty seconds that Ed Sullivan spends introducing the band? You can hear the audience just waiting to go freaking nuts. The anxiety of anticipation is palpable.

Now the Beatles actual set is really good, though not great. "Til There Was You"? Absolutely not a rock and roll choice, but these guys were pop stars at heart, and they were playing their way into the hearts of millions of Americans who had previously listened exclusively to Pat Boone. Also, "She Loves You" is one of the most roaring singles of the entire decade -- they kinda hide it in the third slot. "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" lags too, unfortunately. In short, they'd play better and sharper, but there's just nothing like this for pure enthusiasm and joy. I'd advise anyone down in the dumps to watch it daily and tell me with a straight face they don't feel better.

There's even great irony in the performance, when Sullivan shares the telegram from Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker -- as Elvis began to lose it, the Fab Four reported that Elvis later tried to get the Beatles kicked out of the country.

Enjoy, and maybe I'll post their second night on Sullivan later.

There's a room where the lights won't find you

2010-05-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feelings about Ted Leo. Blasphemy in DC, I know, but I just don't really love him that much. Seen him twice, both were good, not great performances. I like maybe a half dozen of his songs, but in fairness to him, haven't really heard either of his last two discs. Does seem like both a really funny and really nice guy though, so right on to that.

So Ted Leo covering Tears for Fears? Well, actually I've always had a soft spot for Tears for Fears. My dad, who has excellent taste in music on the whole, used to be a big fan of theirs, and once claimed that "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was one of his favorite songs of all-time. I'm not kidding about this. He also would probably tell you that "Neon Rainbow" by the Box Tops is his favorite Alex Chilton song, but hey, to each his own. I shouldn't judge. After all, he's the man I owe for all most of my important, lasting allegiances anyway. For those keeping score at home that includes the Redskins, the Beatles over the Stones which is really a no brainer in my opinion, and pork, rather than beef, when it comes to barbecue.

A long-winded introduction, but anyway...here's Ted Leo and the Pharmacists very ably doing "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" on this cool new thing AV Club is doing called "Undercover". Check 'er out:

Ted%20Leo%20and%20the%20Pharmacists%20cover%20Tears%20for%20Fears'%20%22Everybody%20Wants%20to%20Rule%20the%20World%22

Degree of Separation: Antoine Walker and Neil Young

2010-03-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

If I asked you how many degrees of separation there were between rock and roll legend Neil Young and Kentucky hoops great Antoine Walker, what would you say? Much like that Kevin Bacon game from way back when, but better -- I can connect them in one move. Ready?

Kentucky Wildcats basketball fans may remember this name: Geno Ford. Back when 'Toine was a highly-touted but unproven freshman, Ford was the Ohio University point guard. Ohio, led by Gary Trent, were expected to have a great year and the Cats brought them to Rupp for an early season nonconference game.

At some point in the second half, Walker was defending Ford man-to-man at the top of the key. He pounded the floor to signal his dedication to the cause, and then Ford promptly blew by him, scored, and got fouled for the old-fashioned three point play. We cruised to victory -- that was the OU team that had Gary Trent, I believe -- but that was a memorable moment and kinda put the freshman (who would go on to dominate most others who crossed his path over the next two years) in his place.

So anyhow, Geno Ford is the Kent State head basketball coach now. Who knew?

So if someone asks you how many degrees of separation there are between 'Toine and Neil Young, the answer is one:

Antoine Walker > schooled by Geno Ford, who is currently the coach at Kent State > site of 1970 protest and shooting, immortalized in Neil Young tune "Ohio"

Dear Sir or Madam wouldya read my book?

2010-02-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

New video for The High Dials' "Killer of Dragons"

2010-02-11T14:27:00.001-08:00

Big fan of the High Dials, the great psych-pop group out of Montreal. Put on a very good show last fall at the Velvet Lounge here in DC and I did a little interview with them beforehand.

They just put out a new video for the lead single from Moon Country, a really strong album that just came out in the States last year. Check it out:

The Swell Season - "Levitate Me"

2010-02-03T06:08:00.000-08:00

One of my all-time favorite Pixies tunes, covered by the Swell Season. Had the pleasure of seeing them a few years back in Richmond, VA and they did this one and it blew me away. Here's them covering it at Bonnaroo:

And the original:

The Pixies - "Levitate Me" (live in Madrid)

*thanks to Captain's Dead for the song.

digger dagger

2010-01-26T20:22:00.000-08:00

Cats lose to South Carolina. We played poorly, John Wall in particular. Bledsoe was not good, Patterson was absent, and for a team with such great height, we were totally outmanned on the boards. Downey for the Gamecocks was tremendous, though he did only shoot 9-29 (which speaks to 2 things: his ability to get to the line and just how badly Kentucky played on offense).

But what really drives me nuts is that with Kentucky's first loss -- as the last undefeated team -- Digger Phelps now gets more screen time because of his theory that all teams need a loss going into the tournament. From a player standpoint, I could see where the pressure of continuing to win might eventually build to an unmanageable level, but from a practical standpoint, what is a coach or team really to do? Shouldn't teams aspire to greatness (not suggesting Kentucky is anywhere close yet)? Instead, we have to listen to Digger who parlayed his one-Final Four-career into a cushy ESPN "analyst" job on the back of ending UCLA's 88 game win streak.

Moral of the story: when previously undefeated teams go down, Digger Phelps wins, and that in itself is enough reason to always pull for the favorites.

The Redskins vs. the Colts

2010-01-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

Watching the Colts-Jets game now. Just had a quick thought that was probably too long for Twitter, so I figured I'd throw it up here. The Colts right now are on the verge of clinching a Super Bowl berth on the back of two remarkable games by Austin Collie and Pierre Garcon. To me, that says two things. First, Peyton Manning can make anyone look like a great receiver. Second, as great as Manning is, he can't do it all, which means Collie and Garcon have to be fairly good on their own. And Indianapolis has the front office know-how and scouting set-up to draft two rookies out of virtually nowhere (Collie, a fourth rounder out of BYU, and Garcon, a sixth rounder out of D3 Mount Union College in Ohio).

I'm sure other teams had these guys on their radar -- at least Collie -- but without moving beyond the wide receiver position we've already pinpointed two big-time impact guys the Colts plucked from anonymity and inserted into the starting lineup. In the past five years or so, I can really only think of two 'Skins rookies who had a significant impact: Brian Orakpo, who was great but also a no-brainer first round pick, and Chris Horton, who was a genuine find but still has developing to do. The next couple months are huge for Bruce Allen. There's the saying that Washington always wins the offseason, free agent sweepstakes, but can they make the transition to sustainable development, a la building through the draft with shrewd picks like these? I'm not holding my breath.

Haiti: Racism and How To Actually Help

2010-01-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

Did everyone see David Brooks' column in the NYT the other day about the ongoing disaster in Haiti? If not, I would recommend reading it -- though I wish somehow we could get around linking to it, I don't want the editors thinking this kind of race-baiting gets hits -- and really taking a moment to consider what he's saying. He tries to point blame for Haiti's lack of development somewhere (anywhere but here, actually), and decides its the backwards culture that's to blame. He notes, "There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized." Now he doesn't say where this comes from (time spent in the field, perhaps?), nor does he really explain what he means by social mistrust. He points to US ideas for fighting poverty like No Excuse schools, arguing for a sort of "no excuses" approach. That can be all well and good too, but 1) it never helps to gloss over real, lived historical experiences as processes experienced within a monolithic, unchanging culture, 2) it's (as Sam Martinez writes here) a little tactless at this particular moment, 3) using Mr. Clash of Civs himself, Samuel Huntington, ("cultures do change after major traumas) to make his point doesn't exactly strengthen the case, and, finally, 4) asserting the need for Haitian leaders with "middle class assumptions" to take ownership of these programs also means asking these potential leaders what they hope to achieve. What does "progress" and "development" mean to Haitians? Does they mean exactly the same thing to David Brooks? For this last point expressed eloquently, in detail, and with evidence, check out the AnthroWorks blog here.

I'd encourage everyone to get out there and read what's being written about Haiti. It's a sad, all too frequently occurring realization we have when we "discover" (or maybe "re-discover") a desperate part of the world (or our own city or town) only in the aftermath of a great tragedy or disaster. In the past week, tons of writers and scholars and students have been outspoken "experts" on Haiti, and while it might be a knee-jerk reaction to dismiss them, I do think this is the time and place to consider our place in the world and the actions we choose to take in relation to the myriad of other cultures, peoples, and places that share the Earth with us. Not everything written about Haiti has been groundbreaking or insightful, but, like I've done here, I think it's an important moment to bring more people into the fold, to let more people know about what's going on.

*On a somewhat biased note, my beloved Kentucky Wildcats put together a "Hoops for Haiti" fundraiser today that pulled in half a million dollars. Yeah, Kentuckians are wacky about basketball -- some might say "unbalanced" -- but think about how many Kentuckians that became aware and took action to help out Haitians simply because their favorite coach turned them onto it. That's a good thing.

Photo from Flickr user UNDP, Creative Commons.

WSJ on the length of football games

2010-01-15T19:41:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read this article in today's Wall Street Journal Style section -- don't lie, you know WSJ Style is essential pre-lunchtime work-comp reading every morning -- then you ought to.

The basic thrust: for every NFL game you watch on television, you see, on average, 10 minutes and 43 seconds of actual football being played. 60% of what you watch is football players milling around and waiting: huddles, sidelines, Peyton flapping his arms and yelling nonsense word-number combos ad nauseum.

I love football, I love to watch it on television. Going back to school has meant my schedule over the past two years has limited this, pretty much keeping me to the Kentucky Wildcats and the Redskins. My wife can tell you that if I am at home studying on Saturday or Sunday, I will get nothing done. I have to leave the house. HOWEVER, she can also tell you that I have, rather unscientifically, been claiming this very thing for a couple years now. We frequently DVR football games, because it lets me condense 4 hours of viewing time into about 45 minutes. And to think that is still 4 times too long!

Is there another sport where the clock runs without the ball actually in play? Is there another sport where the point of at least one-fourth of the game is to actually have the ball in play as little as possible? I've never played a down of organized tackle football in my life, so I'm not going to comment too much, but I'd love to hear what a football player had to say. How might they feel about the fact that your sport's games entail less than 11 minutes of real action? I imagine they really don't care at all.

freudian slips

2009-12-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

As mentioned previously, I should really be working now. But this is too good not to post. In doing a little prep for our trip coming up, I came across this on a hotel website for a place in Dahab, on the coast in Sinai.

Go to this link here and look at the special offer on the left side. Awesome.

Mimicry: Guided by Voices

2009-12-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

My wife and I leave for our honeymoon on Friday. I have less than 48 hours to complete a 15-20 page paper, work a (nearly) full day tomorrow, pack, sleep a couple times, eat a few things, bathe, run a few small errands, and decompress. We're going to Egypt too, so I should practice some Arabic, which I've barely touched for the past month.

So there's a very bright light at the end of the tunnel, but I still need stuff to sustain me. Legal stuff -- coffee, music, sweets. I have not yet resorted to nicotine, so we're keeping it pretty clean. But, running out of options, I thought to myself, "What is it I need to do?" The answer, of course, is be as prolific in a very short period of time (I should note that I completed another 15 pager this morning around 3 am). Who is the king of being extremely -- almost offensively -- prolific in short periods of time? Robert Pollard, the mastermind behind Guided by Voices, that's who.

I thought for a minute that I could do all Bob Pollard and GbV from here on out, but that's just not possible. I'd kill myself. Plus, I never sprung for those absurdly exhaustive box sets he puts out, so I'd run out of material (I think). Instead, I'm having a contest: who does the best Guided by Voices rip-off?

So far the contestants: The Capstan Shafts, The Broadfield Marchers, and Times New Viking. Capstan Shafts have a commanding lead.

Anyone else care to throw a name into the ring?

'I saw another one just the other day / A special new band'

2009-12-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

"I'm just never gonna like a new band as much as I like Pavement. There, I said it." - my buddy G.L.

Hard to argue. Maybe Pavement's not that band for you -- I tried to think of who else might be that band for me -- but I think for most serious music fans there's a group or an artist out there that just makes you wish you were there when it all happened. You mythologize it so much maybe that it can't ever really live up to expectations, but, thankfully, the current impossibility of time travel renders this a moot point. Sure, it would've been great to be at Monterey Pop or just to experience the thrill of spinning a hot off the press copy of Rubber Soul in '65 -- those are maybe too obvious. That's why Pavement's such a good choice. Of my other all-time favorite bands, none really had/have that buzz, that very particular style, that tied them so closely to a particular time and place. I'm sure there are others that fit the mold though -- who's got their own pick?

And speaking of which, Captain's Dead has been posting plenty of Pavement shows lately, and he's got a great one up right now from Shepherd's Bush in 1997. Very good sound quality. A couple mp3s from it below:

Pavement - "Cut Your Hair" (Live)
Pavement - "Stop Breathin" (Live)
Pavement - "Silence Kit" (Live)

Nowhere Boy

2009-12-13T12:16:00.000-08:00

My buddy Casey (he of the great and hilarious "Action Direct" blog which covers the best and worst in action movies of all shapes and sizes) passed this along to me. Looks interesting. Better than that "Two of Us" crap VH1 peddled a few years back.

Jimmy Fallon doing Neil Young

2009-12-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

You really ought to see this:

Wow.

World Cup Draw today, 12 noon on ESPN2

2009-12-04T06:20:00.000-08:00

The World Cup 2010 Draw takes place today at noon on ESPN2. The stage will be effectively set for next summer (winter in South Africa though), and we can all begin our prognosticating. The draw is set up in four pots: one top pot of seeded teams, and the rest grouped regionally. A group can have no more than 2 European teams, and otherwise no two teams from the same continent can be drawn together. Because the host gets an automatic seed, and because South Africa is really not very good, possible draws range as widely as South Africa, Uruguay, New Zealand, and Slovakia as one group to Brazil, Ivory Coast, Mexico, and France in another. If the US can't draw South Africa as their seeded team, I'm personally pulling for Italy. We snatched a draw against them in 2006 and we had the lead against them last summer, before a cruel red card reduced us to 10 men and we lost 3-1. Either way, in all likelihood the US will be the 3rd or 4th best (most fancied?) team in a 4 team group. My one sincere hope, however, is that Algeria gets drawn into a group against their former colonizers, France, which really has some great post-colonial potential.

Here's a video of the BBC's choice for top ten all-time World Cup Goals. Enjoy.

I'm partial to all of them, but I especially love Bergkamp at #6. I remember watching this live -- it was around the last minute of the game, looked headed for overtime, I think both teams were down to 10 men, and then came this.

Ed Sullivan's Rock and Roll

2009-12-02T20:29:00.000-08:00

PBS is airing "Ed Sullivan's Rock and Roll", a collection of some of the best live performances from his show in the 60s. And it is awesome, despite containing several clunkers (Beach Boys, I'm looking at you).

Here are a few of my all-time favorite pop tunes for your listening and viewing pleasure:

We Five - "You Were On My Mind"

The Turtles - "You Baby"

The Seeds - "Pushin' Too Hard"

The Easybeats - "Friday on My Mind"

More things to be thankful for, organized thematically in groups of five

2009-11-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

Five Robert Pollard-penned songs I am thankful for
1. "Glad Girls"
2. "Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory"
3. "Salty Salute"
4. "Love is Stronger Than Witchcraft"
5. "Shocker in Gloomtown"

Five Innovations in Candy I am thankful for
1. Sour blow pops
2. Almond Snickers
3. The Take Five bar
4. Various lemonade flavored Mike and Ikes
5. Sugar Babies

Five Pink Floyd songs I am thankful for my recent rediscovery of
1. "Careful with that Axe, Eugene"
2. "Pigs (3 different ones)"
3. "Bike"
4. "Seamus"
5. Not "Welcome to the Machine"

Five Redskins Players I am thankful for
1. London Fletcher
2.
3.
4.
5.

Five Historical Figures I am thankful for
1. Napoleon, but not II or III
2. Brian Epstein
3. Hubert Lyautey
4. Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser
5. Meriwether Lewis

Five Types of Pretzel I am thankful for
1. Snyder's of Hanover Sourdough
2. Utz thin wheels
3. Rold Gold mini twists
4. Snyder's of Hanover Buffalo Nuggets
5. Big soft ones

Five Pieces of Americana I am thankful for
1. Motel 6 or Super 8 or whatever
2. The little triangle-golf tee games at Cracker Barrel
3. The interstate system
4. The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl
5. Historical outdoor dramas, a la "The Legend of Daniel Boone"

A few odd things for which I am thankful

2009-11-24T08:06:00.000-08:00

It's Thanksgiving time. We here at the Zawiya wish you all a wonderful holiday. Beyond the food, and the gathering of the friends and the family, my favorite part has always been the lazy morning around the house. My various relatives usually have very elaborate meals planned, and they being the stellar chefs that they are, usually do not ask for help, willing though I am to provide it. This frees me up to sit around and watch one of America's hokiest traditions, the Macy's Day Parade (the enjoyment of which is passed the the patrilineal line directly to me from my dad, who, to my knowledge, has never missed the parade). It also frees me up to watch the annual trouncing of the Lions. Like most NFL fans, I've often wondered why the Detroit Lions -- a team that, for all intents and purposes, have been really very bad for a long time and who do not seem to have an especially large national fanbase -- play every year on Thanksgiving, but I suppose it's about as natural as watching lip-synched duet of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" by Taylor Hanson and Julianne Hough in the Macy's Parade. The nice thing about commercialized holidays is that we're encouraged not to ask too many questions.

So beyond being thankful for my wife, my family, and my friends, here are a few off the wall things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving. This list is partially inspired by a game I played with my niece a year ago when we drew hand-turkeys and wrote the things we were thankful for in the fingers. I wrote "mayonnaise" and "socks" as two of mine, and she's never let me live it down. Here's a few more: the Thanksgiving weekend football schedule, which provides a constant flow of high quality rivalry games all the way through Sunday; smoked turkey and Duke's mayonnaise; Kentucky WR Randall Cobb; the complete irreverence of most of Ween's recorded output; the handful of impeccable pop songs that sprinkle throughout that same Ween recorded output ("Stay Forever", "Joppa Road", "Ocean Man", "What Deaner Was Talking About"); Butterfingers, both the candy bar and the power-pop tune by Gentleman Jesse; smart wool; good punting and an old-fashioned field position battle; decorative gourd season; my/our impending honeymoon trip to Egypt; the slim possibility that the US and North Korea as well as France and Algeria could be drawn into the same World Cup groups; oatmeal; "Careful with that Axe, Eugene" by Pink Floyd; knowing that I will not be standing in line anywhere on "Black Friday".

Anyone else care to add?

Algeria - Egypt game, live video

2009-11-18T10:58:00.001-08:00

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/news/newsid=1135950.html#watch+algeria+egypt+live+now

Good picture, too.

John Wall at the buzzer

2009-11-16T20:35:00.001-08:00

What's that catchy lingo the kids are using these days? I think it goes something like "John Wall FTW". It actually applies here:

Misr wa al-Jaza'ir / Egypt and Algeria

2009-11-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

World Cup qualifying is winding down. All the places will be set soon, with Euro qualifiers wrapping up this week. African qualifying should have finished yesterday, but the final spot out of five total for the continent is still up for grabs.

Algeria and Egypt met in Cairo on Saturday to settle that final spot. Algeria led the group by three points, and held a better goal differential. To win the group, Egypt would need to beat Algeria by three clear goals. A 1-0 win did them no good; it would send Algeria to the World Cup on better goal differential. There was one other possible scenario, of course: a two goal victory for Egypt would set up one final, winner-take-all playoff in Sudan on Wednesday.

So the teams took the field, and Egypt, in front of a spirited crowd at Cairo Int'l Stadium, got off to the dream start in taking a 1-0 lead in the 2nd minute through former Wigan striker Zaki. Algeria then held them off, valiantly, for the next 90 minutes, even creating (but blowing) a few chances of their own. And then in the 95th minute, 5 minutes deep into the allotted 6 minutes of injury time (the ref is surely not loved in the Maghreb today)...

Well...just watch for yourself:

There's going to be a lot to look forward to next summer. Here's hoping Cairo's buzzing about a first WC berth since 1990 when my wife and I get there in just about a month for our delayed honeymoon.

The Half-Game Suspension

2009-11-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

My beloved Kentucky Wildcats are typically subjected to an annual demolition at the hands of Urban Meyer's Florida Gators, but, despite this, I don't hate Meyer all that much. He's brought a couple national crowns to the SEC, and, in so doing, made the Big Ten and Big 12 look like the pretenders that they are.

The guy's a great coach, no denying it, but a few things of late, for me, hint that he's a jerk. The latest is this "half-game" suspension for Brandon Spikes, Meyer's All-America linebacker who tried to gouge out the eyes of a Georgia player during the Gators blowout win on Saturday.

I understand that crap happens during the game that is pretty dirty and that we don't see. I played a little rugby and getting raked at the bottom of a ruck is pretty much par for the course. Cheap shots, all that...whatever. I'm not too concerned about it, but anyone who does it knows the consequences, which is generally some kind of suspension. But Meyer's docked him half a game for the gouging, which is weak. And not because it should be two games or three, but simply because one game is so little that it makes pretty transparent that Meyer could not care less about suspension, discipline, or even really participating in the charade that a token suspending or disciplining would be.

Also, they're playing Vandy. You mean the number one team in the country can't beat Vandy with Spikes on the bench? Please.

The Sports Bog carries the torch

2009-10-27T19:34:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I watched last night's Redskins game against Philly. What an odd one. There were a couple drives when we looked okay, and, even counting two massive, back-breaking plays by Jackson, the defense only allowed 14 points (I'm not counting the two field goals).

But let's face it: what a miserably bad team the Redskins are. They are so woefully bad that they invent new ways to fail; I personally liked the shotgun-snap-into-your-ass on 4th and goal late in the game. Again, Jason Campbell comes off looking like a subpar quarterback. And yeah, good QBs take charge and make crappy players look okay, but the man is surrounded with bad football players who also appear to be clueless -- a terrible combination. I think that if we looked at where each Redskin ranks according to their position, across the entire NFL, we'd find Jason somewhere between 18 and 21. Where would we find Stephon Heyer or Will Montgomery? Hell, where would we find Carlos Rogers or Laron Landry? HELL, where would we find Clinton Portis and Santana Moss?

Of course, these are subversive things to say these days. One cannot say them at or near Redskin Park or FedEx Field. Otherwise they will be censored. Dan Steinberg, of the DC Sports Bog, has long served as the voice of the fan here in DC, and he's carried the torch admirably well of late on this debacle of an organization to which some of us have given so much love, time, and money over the years. Two important items to note:

1) The team is no longer allowing banners or signs in the stadium. This policy has changed in the past two weeks, much like a fading regime imposes a curfew after hours and/or bans dissenting political parties. Actually, it's exactly like those two things.
2) They tried to kick out several fans wearing anti-Snyder/Cerrato/fascism t-shirts. Some are quite funny, most are predictable.

Anyway, these are things to consider when going to the next home game. And what I mean by that is that you should not pay a dime for tickets, parking, beer, soda, or officially licensed merchandise. Accept donated tickets only. Take metro. Wear homemade shirts. Sneak mini-bottles into the stadium, or drink water from the faucet. I imagine security will only get tighter, which it tends to do as regimes close the political space available for opposition forces. You know, someone really needs to write a book about Snyder and his incompetence, find a way to peddle said book near the stadium, thereby goading Snyder into confiscating and burning the book. Is Steinberg up for the job?

e + i = history

2009-10-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the privilege of attending a pretty interesting conference put on jointly by PARC and the Institute for Middle East Studies at GW. The topic was "Palestine: What We Know", and more than anything the panelists and speakers were trying to get at the problem of accessing information about a place that isn't a state. It was about the difficulties historians (and historically-minded anthropologists) encounter when they go in search of archives -- official or otherwise -- that, at worst, have been destroyed or, at best, haven't been subjected to the same kinds of official cataloguing, etc. that an official state might undertake.

The keynote speaker was Rashid Khalidi -- whom you may recall from his days as one of Obama's "subversive" pals in Chicago, but more importantly a Middle East historian of the finest order, and a pretty good speaker too. He was opinionated without ever getting too preachy, sharply shooting down a student's rather silly question about what "Obama is really thinking" by asking why, if he actually knew, he would broadcast it in front of this particular audience today.

He was hitting the major themes of the conference too, speaking to the challenges of "Palestinian Studies" as a discipline, but with a strong focus on history. He came back several times to the importance of "dealing with sources". He even took a swipe at Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, sort of a sacred cow when it comes to great histories of the 20th century, for Braudel's inability to read Turkish and Turkish sources when writing about a time when Turkish-speakers dominated much of the very region he was studying.

Though I'm sure Braudel -- always one for expanding the historian's toolset to include new disciplines and skills -- would agree with the criticism, for me Khalidi was highlighting something deeper about the nature of history. As one of my current professors puts it, it's the "application of imagination to evidence", and I like that definition a lot. Any good history is based on the collection and analysis of evidence, but that collection never comprises a full picture. We're always trying to dig up more artifacts and uncover more previously-unknown sources, but that full documentation will never be reached. So what do you do? You take what you do have and you imagine it as wholistically as possible, trying to distance yourself from biases (or not, depending...) and relate the pieces of evidence to each other. But every historian has limitations to his/her toolset, posing yet another problem to the evidence-gathering process.

When I write this -- or share it with someone, typically my wife, God bless her -- it can come across as somewhat obvious. It sounds, on paper, a lot like what a good journalist does or even a lawyer, and not too distant from the work of a scientist either. I'd agree with that, too, but I think unlike some of those things, there are aspects (and ideas) of history that have become so deeply ingrained in the way we think about ourselves -- as individuals, as a nation, as members of a religion, a race, a gender, a community -- that we cease to anymore understand them as the result of this process: evidence + imagination. These "truths we hold to be self-evident"? Those too.

Welcome (back)

2009-10-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

So I know it's been a short-lived existence for the old distant/imperial blog. The name just never really fit. I think I found a better one.

I hereby christen this here new blog "wowee zawiya".

What does it mean? First off, Wowee Zowee is Pavement's third full-length LP. As my former co-blogger G.L. pointed out to me, it's also kind of a grab bag of a record -- all sorts of different sounds and styles and moods in pretty random order. Since I'll probably cover music, sports, the Middle East, food, and maybe some current events, it seemed like a good fit.

The pun, of course, is trading "zowee" for "zawiya". A "zawiya" (or zaouia) has a few different usages in Arabic, but usually means either an Islamic school or place of learning, or a Sufi lodge. In parts of North Africa, specifically around the Sahara, it's used to refer to the scholarly tribes (as opposed to the warrior and subservient tribes on either side of a kind of caste system).

So there you have it. Expect the same stuff. Just with a different name. Kind of like Hardee's and Carl Jr.'s. Or regime changes in Algeria. Either way.

You kissed me on the forehead / Now this kiss is giving me concussions

2009-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Camera Obscura:

"My Maudlin Career"

"French Navy"

Jeremy Jarmon in the Washington Post

2009-10-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Good article about former Kentucky Wildcat and current Redskin Jeremy Jarmon in the Washington Post today. All I can say is, when they scrap the dead weight that makes up much of the 'Skins roster, this guy becomes a building block on the d-line for years to come.

US-Costa Rica Reactions

2009-10-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

A very exciting game last night at RFK to close out World Cup qualifying for the US team; can't believe I had to turn down the chance to go.

If you didn't see it, Costa Rica -- needing a win to guarantee qualification for the World Cup -- took an early 2-0 with two fine goals from Ruiz. The US, who fielded a nearly-full strength team, played reasonably well (certainly better than their terrible 3-1 loss in San Jose last spring) but had nothing to show for it. A second half goal off a rebound from Bradley made it 2-1, but here's where things got interesting. First Onyewu goes down injured (now out for 3-4 months, which is very bad), then the Costa Rican coaches go nuts on the sidelines over a substitution issue. It seemed pretty clear to me that they were killing as much time as possible, as the entire team had done for most of the second half. Eventually, the ref says enough's enough and tosses head coach Rene Simoes and his assistant (who could be seen saying "Don't touch me!" while being escorted from the field by a DC cop). All that time-wasting on the part of Costa Rica results in five minutes of injury time, and with fifteen seconds left of those five, Jonathan Bornstein swoops in and heads a corner kick low into the net to tie it up. Down in El Salvador, Honduras had taken a 1-0 lead, meaning their win, coupled with a bigger goal difference, would be enough to put the Hondurans in the World Cup and send the Ticos to a difficult playoff with Uruguay for the final spot. The US game ended 2-2, setting off wild celebrations amongst the Hondurans and ensuring the time-wasting and gamesmanship of Costa Rica wasn't rewarded.

Watch the goals from US-Costa Rica here and from El Salvador-Honduras here.

UPDATED: If you haven't already heard this, go now and listen. It's the radio broadcast from Honduras as the result comes in from RFK meaning Honduras clinches a World Cup spot. I don't speak Spanish, but it doesn't matter at all. Just a little taste of what's in store next summer, hopefully.

I Will Sing You Songs

2009-10-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

I know Z seems to be the consensus number one My Morning Jacket album these days, and while I'm not knocking it, I still think their "Golden" age (heh...get it?) was that period just between the atmospheric country of At Dawn and the brawny rock stomp of It Still Moves. I'll never forget two truly epic versions of "Phone Went West" I saw the summer before It Still Moves came out, the band stretching everything out way too long and throwing in a barnstorming punk section near the end of its jam that nearly brought the house (or tent) down. But thinking back on all that MMJ era's tunes, my favorite also happens to be one of their slowest:

My Morning Jacket - "I Will Sing You Songs" (Live) [be patient with the intro]

Great piece on my beleaguered Redskins

2009-10-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

Tracee Hamilton of the Washington Post really nails the situation at Redskin Park. It's a must-read for Skins fans as well as those that delight in our misery.

What's really amazing about our predicament is that we're 2-3, far better technically-speaking than a host of teams in the league, but the consensus is that it really doesn't get any worse than the burgundy-and-gold. If I had to put our my power rankings, I'd place us just ahead of bottom-dwellers St. Louis, Oakland, Tampa Bay. Actually I'll keep us ahead of Cleveland and Buffalo too. I do, however, think the Chiefs will beat us this weekend. And the Titans, though 0-5 and truly reeling, are probably better than Zorn's crew. Anyone care to disagree with this assessment?

Minorities, as defined by (some) Republicans

2009-10-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

This is terrible, but, in its own, very particular way, awesome too. Robert Lowry, a Republican, is trying to unseat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). In a weekly campaign meeting at a local gun range, Lowry fired shots at a target that was dressed in a traditional kaffiyeh with the letters "DWS" (the Congresswoman's initials) on it. His campaign has kinda/sorta apologized to Wasserman Schultz, and now the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is on their case trying to get an apology. And best of all, the president of the Southeast Broward Republican Club (who hosted the event) actually commented that the complaints were infringing on minority rights: "For the Democrats, who are supposed to be the party of minority rights, they're not being very sensitive to our rights." I suppose the minority he's referring to would be the Republican party? Or perhaps the ever-maligned "male Caucasian" minority group?

Seems like a pretty reasonable request. Given the pretty absurd portrayals of Arabs, my guess is that many (the majority?) Americans have no idea that Arabs and Muslims are not the same, that the Taliban is not comprised of Arabs, etc, etc. (if you don't know, this information can be found on Wikipedia rather quickly). Just about one year ago we were hearing the only-slightly-humorous complaints of Sarah Palin and John McCain over the LA Times' refusal to release a tape of Obama giving a toast to Rashid Khalidi, esteemed Columbia University professor and scholar, on accounts that he was a "PLO spokesman." Of course, it later surfaced that he and the organization he headed was funded by the International Republican Institute (which denied the "PLO spokesman" claims), which was...wait for it...chaired by McCain.

That's old news, but it's still a fine example of some in this country -- saying it's all "Republicans" is just too easy, and it's not too fair -- seeing "Arab" and thinking "terrorist", or seeing "Palestinian" and thinking "anti-Semite". These are not interchangeable terms.

Also: reminds me too of last year's Fancy Farm happenings whereby Mitch McConnell supporters donned robes and beards and acted like Arab oil sheikhs who were raking in the cash because of opponent Bruce Lunsford's gas tax policy positions. Now apparently Fancy Farm (an annual political meetup) is "rowdy" and "pretty wild" from what I hear, which nonetheless fails to excuse this and further highlights what I'm talking about here.

Letter from Burgundy and Gold Royalty

2009-10-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

(I swear, I'm going to get to stuff other than the Redskins and the Wildcats, but it's just taking a little while.)

So a little backstory. My parents both grew up in northern Virginia, out in Loudoun County, both families big Redskins fans (on a side note, many family members moved off and subsequently abandoned the Redskins. My parents, God bless them, moved to Kentucky but raised us as Redskins fans from afar). My mom grew up next door to Pat Fischer, one of the true all-time burgundy-and-gold greats. My first Redskins sweatshirt? Pat's old practice shirt.

Anyway, my grandparents stayed good friends with them and so when we'd visit, we'd typically see them. Pat's son Marty was always around and sorta like the cooler, older guy when I was younger. I haven't seen any of the Fischers since my grandfather passed away five years ago, so I was pretty surprised to see this show up on the DC Sports Bog. As you can read on the Bog, it started off as a letter to his fellow 'Skins fans that basically blew up and got forwarded all around. Makes for a great story, and I like what he says. I think he'd probably judge me a bit too critical of the team (well...), but he's undeniably one of the biggest fans we've got, and for that, I salute him.

Larry Michael

2009-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hard to get off the Redskins these days.

Sitting here watching Larry Michael on Redskins Report. Is there a bigger joker than this guy? He's answering fan mail right now. Some points he's addressed:

1. Fan writes in and says he's "had enough" because the Redskins lost to one of the worst teams of all time. Michael expresses utter shock and disgust that you could call the Lions one of the worst teams of all time. His proof? "Who did the Lions have at quarterback last year? And who do they have this year? Ok then, I rest my case."

2. Complimenting the 'Skins fans from the retirement home near Ashburn who put up some balloons and signs to encourage the team. 'Course, they have no photos of these decorations. Second, they're in a retirement home. Third, he calls them "real fans" and suggests the naysayers just "pretend" to be fans.

3. Mentions multiple times that there are still 13 games left on the schedule.

Larry Michael is filled with the type of blind faith in the organization that comes when broadcasting that blind faith is the sole requirement of a job that nets you a sweet little six-figure salary each year. Any real fan knows he can't be trusted, but lest the rest of you see him or hear him and get the wrong idea, I wanted to make things clear. This man is not a journalist. He is a highly paid employee of the Washington Redskins, who these days rival the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime for absurd propaganda.

I'm curious to hear if people think they can beat the previously-woeful Bucs at home on Sunday.

On the State of the Washington Redskins

2009-09-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

I got started on my "Sunday Evening Notebook" but realized the only things I cared to discuss dealt with the Redskins. So here are a few notes on the state of the team, and on this week's lost to Detroit Lions:

- Jim Zorn is getting appropriately ripped for being a bad coach. The man is a bad head coach. Most are pointing to his two key decisions on the Lions' first scoring drive, when he went for it on 4th and goal at the 1 (but called a stretch running play with the washed up Portis that now even Portis questions) and when he accepted the penalty on third down to try and push the Lions out of field goal range (when rookie QB Matt Stafford ran for about 25 yards on 3rd and 13). First, I think it's reasonable to expect your players -- and your franchise back -- to gain a single yard on 4th down against the worst team in the league. Second, it's reasonable to expect your defense to stop the worst team in the league on 3rd and 13. Each decision is essentially 50-50; Brian Billick, who presided over plenty of such decisions in a fairly successful career, seemed to agree with both of them. But good coaches get these 50-50 calls right. More often than not, Zorn's been wrong.

- All that said, you can't fire Zorn yet. Here's why: you need to seem halfway, just a little sane for the next guy who comes in. Dan Snyder already has a reputation as a highly blemished, deeply flawed decision maker. He ran Marty out of town after an 8-3 finish to a season that started 0-5 -- a team that was starting to really look strong and confident. Despite personnel and scouting issues being theee main reason this team hasn't consistently competed for the division title, Snyder has refused to sign a capable G.M. There is literally nothing in his past that says he would be a good man to work for, save his handling of Sean Taylor's death two years ago. If the Redskins want Shanahan, Cowher, or Holmgren (or Gruden, Dungy, et al), they need to show that they can avoid a rash decision, just this once. That, and they have no one on the staff right now who I'd like to take over this team. Greg Blache? No thanks.

- As Redskins Insider alluded to this morning, there are so many things wrong with this team, I have no idea where you'd start overhauling:

1) The offensive line is patchwork. Great guys, all of them, and they've given us a number of quality years. It will be a sad day when Randy Thomas and Casey Rabach are no longer on the team. But they are an old unit, and I fear for Jason's life when they face the Cowboys or the Giants later in the season.
2) The secondary is far weaker than we thought. They are allowing huge cushions to the opposing receivers. The safeties are adequate in run support but not much for covering. One fears we overpaid considerably for Hall.
3) Clinton Portis looks like he may be done. Last year, he went to town on the weak teams at the beginning of the schedule. Yeah, the O-line was different and better, but he's not cutting very sharply, he's not riding through tackles or hitting holes quickly.
4) The receiving corps experiment hasn't exactly panned out. Santana was great yesterday, which is one game out of three. Randle-El was largely absent and, despite throwing to them early to get them involved, Kelly and Thomas offered nothing. Even Cooley was quiet.

Let's just say Jason Campbell is a big part of the problem (Though I don't think he is). Then just think for a second about all the parts that look like they ought to be scrapped too, and try and think about the "young talent" waiting in the wings to take over. There's literally none.

Redskins - Lions Preview

2009-09-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I write somewhat regularly for DCist.com. This season I'm doing a weekly preview of the Redskins game, with predictions, each Sunday morning.

I went back and forth this week, and initially really believed the Lions would win. My wife convinced me otherwise. Unlike most 'Skins fans, I still kinda like Jason Campbell. Great QB? Of course not. But he's a decent one, and the team's shortcomings this year are not all on him. So Judy likes us to beat the spread and win by 9. I think it's going to be clooooose. Check out my preview here.

PS - Watching a short interview on Comcast with former 'Skin, current Lion John Jansen. A true Redskin and was a key part of some very good running teams. I was sad to see him go and I'd love to see him have a good year with his new squad.

All You Damn Fascists

2009-09-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Laila Lalami (a very good Moroccan writer who also keeps an interesting blog on many things Maghribi and literary, though not always both at once), the American Library Association is, uh, "celebrating" Banned Book Week right now. It's designed to raise awareness of book banning -- and burning -- that's gone on in the course of world and American history.

Here's the list of previously banned books. It's -- how to put this -- pretty shocking. Can you conceive of a world where Huckleberry Finn or The Color Purple were not essential high school reading but rather banned? How about Catcher in the Rye? As recent as 2007, these books were on the top ten most frequently banned books list.

Billy Bragg and Wilco - "All You Damn Fascists"

Little Pearls of Wisdom

2009-09-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

Bruce Pearl, the University of Tennessee's basketball coach, made headlines this week with some off-color comments about race and his recruits. I'll let you see for yourself here. Impressive.

Searching for Hal Mumme

2009-09-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Every Kentuckian's most beloved sportswriter (his "journalist" credentials being subject to debate these days), Pat Forde, put out an APB for former Cats football coach Hal Mumme in his weekly Dash column this week:

A pair of former SEC coaches gone obscure, Hal Mumme (38) and Joe Lee Dunn (39). The Dash found the former offensive gimmick master at Kentucky and the former defensive gimmick master at Mississippi and Mississippi State at McMurry (Texas) University -- where they got their clocks cleaned on Saturday by Mississippi College. Mississippi College walloped winless McMurry 61-14, scoring three unanswered touchdowns to open the game and leading 31-7 at halftime. And so two cocky guys who always thought they were too smart to play it by the book are now 0-3 in Division III.

Really kicked a man when he was down, didn't he? The McMurry webpage flatters Mumme's career, making him look like a redeemer who just so happens to have "saved" about half-a-dozen lost causes that have literally nothing in common (division, size, geography, academics) beyond their legacy of futility prior to his arrival. After all, this is the man that plunged the Wildcats into scandal and probation that set any progress he may have made back several years. On a related note, I always thought it odd that Lexington renamed a street "Hal Mumme Way" (the signs are all long gone, obviously) before Tubby Smith, who won a national championship, got his own honorary street in town. But I still have a small place in my heart for the man who tried to throw the football like it was going out of style and got us to a New Year's Day bowl game for the first time in...well... my lifetime. And also, during his reign, my dad was always getting stopped and asked if he was Hal Mumme (the resemblance has faded as Mumme's gone gray and gained a little poundage), so that was good laughs all around.

Earlier in the column, Forde also mentioned this year Wildcats, if only to label them a "Pretender" at 2-0 and about to take 4 losses in the next four games against Florida, 'Bama, Auburn, and South Carolina. I'm not sure what Kentucky would be "pretending" to be... an SEC contender? A BCS contender? No one in their right mind has those kinds of delusions. The only thing I think the Cats would claim to be, at this point, is the best football team in the state.

Bunch of tunes

2009-09-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to post regularly but today I got nothing. So here's a bunch of songs for yer hump day.

Handsome Furs - "Radio Kaliningrad"
Wilco - "The Long Cut" (live)
Wilco - "Someone Else's Song" (live)
The Avett Brothers - "Glory Days" (Springsteen cover...Happy Birthday, Boss)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Come Saturday"
M. Ward - "Big Boat"
Teenage Fanclub - "Star Sign"

Boo-birds

2009-09-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

This whole mess about Robert Henson (who? exactly...) is ridiculous. I saw an interview with him after his tweet about how 'Skins fans were "dimwits" for booing the team during Sunday's 9-7 squeaker against the lowly Rams. Seemed like a nice guy who genuinely liked fans, but just thought they should be positive all the time. I'm not too concerned with his statements about this, mostly because the guy a) doesn't play a lot and b) seems not terribly savvy when it comes to these sorts of things. I am, however, very concerned with the comments from Chris Cooley and Antwan Randle-El that basically said the same thing. From the D.C. Sports Bog, I'll quote Cooley for you:

I think Washington prides themselves on being the best fans, and I think that they should try to be the best fans. We won. I understand they wanted us to beat the Rams by 40, but we still won, and we if we continue to win games, that's great. Booing's unnecessary.

Chris, I love this team just about as much as anyone around, but here's the deal. The people in the stadium, they just spent an average of probably $75-80 to get in the door. They spent another $40-50 to park. They pay $8 a beer...hell, they pay $5 just to buy their kid a coke. They do all these things because they love the team and they love the game. I think there are plenty of poorly-adjusted, no-perspective fans out there starting premature boos for no real good reason, and I imagine that's the root of this. But fans have a right to expect a couple things from their professional team: effort and competence. Talent's on the G.M. and the owner (no comment there), and luck gets left to a higher power. I don't doubt the Redskins effort at all (though I will say that Jason Campbell's interception against the Giants was at least in part due to a lack of effort from Santana Moss, whose stock has seriously plummeted in these first two games), but I do doubt their competence. Particularly that of the coaching staff, and I bet that if you polled the boo-birds at FedEx on Sunday, that's who most of them would blame.

The common tagline is that the players don't come to our "9-to-5" jobs and heckle us, so we shouldn't do the same. A better comparison is with another public persona very common to our town -- the politician. His or her competence is subject to public debate and derision on a near daily basis. It's part of the job that they very willingly entered into. The equivalent of boo-ing -- protesting, writing heated op-eds, starting a blog, etc. -- is fair game in the political arena.

I understand the Redskins asking for a little patience. And yes, if they continue to win games, even if it's 6-3 or 9-7, fans should probably keep a lid on it. But does Cooley really believe they even have a chance to win many more games if they keep playing like this? If not, then the fans are just expressing their dissatisfaction with an unacceptable performance. If so, well...that would be the most shocking thing coming out of all this.

Sunday Evening Notebook

2009-09-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Read some Hegel, watched some football. That was Saturday. Read some more Hegel, watched some more football, fried perhaps the last green tomatoes of summer. That's been Sunday so far. But good ones, both of them. Thoughts from what I watched:

- Kentucky took home the coveted Governor's Cup for a third straight year with a sloppy, but still edge-of-the-seat win over the Loo-eee-vill (watched with five Kentuckians who couldn't stand hearing him butcher the pronunciation. As one of them said, "It's like pronouncing Versailles "Ver-sigh", for all of you who know better). The team really let the clock malfunction at the end of the half get to them and the third quarter was just abysmal. Worse, though, was our tackling, particularly that of Winston Guy, who somehow bumbled his way into 7.5 tackles. But special teams made enough big plays (lucky or otherwise) to get us the 31-27 win. With that, the Cats move to 2-0 with #1 Florida coming to Commonwealth Stadium next Saturday. Do I like our chances? Not at all, especially after Lane Kiffin's boys frustrated the hell out of them at the Swamp yesterday...

-...and speaking of the UT-Florida game, Florida looked fine. Tennessee gave them their absolute best shot but the Gators were never really stretched. Not spectacular at all, but who cares? It doesn't really matter who Texas beats by how much -- no one is going to vote them out of #1 if they keep rolling in the SEC.

- Oregon deserves credit for the way they scheduled this year. Opening AT Boise State, getting Purdue at home, and then Utah. Purdue may not be great, but those are three decent games when most schools are busy shaming Charleston Southern or Saint Scholastica or something. And Virginia Tech taking on Bama and Nebraska -- in this day and age, that's bold and deserves a lot of credit. As a fan who doesn't really care about either of those teams, I certainly appreciate the effort.

- That said, V.P.I. (as my uncles still call their alma mater) are not that great. Miami looks good, FSU got a nice win at BYU (since when does Florida State travel to play Brigham Young?), but man...the ACC is a terrible conference. The bottom of that league is about as bottom as it gets. What's the worst part about living in DC? Having to watch Maryland and Virginia play on a regular basis.

- Wow, the Redskins know how to frustrate. I'll give it up for the defense -- those guys look good and are hitting hard and seem to be developing good chemistry. I'm very happy with Haynesworth so far. I'm going to ask Judy tomorrow if London Fletcher can be our first born child's godfather. Even my boy J. Jarmon got a few snaps today. On the other side of the ball, Chris Cooley came to play. The let-downs? Santana Moss, who has been worse than awful so far this year; Clinton Portis, who looks tired and sluggish; Jim Zorn, who should never, ever, under any circumstances, gone for it with 2 minutes remaining on the 3 yard line with a 2 point lead against a team that had no timeouts left; Dan Snyder, who is the worst owner in professional sports. I guess we'll take the win though. I do NOT like heading to Detroit with them on a 19 game losing streak. Smells like a trap.

- I need some consultation here, rules-wise: on Santana's fumble at the end of the first half, the whistle CLEARLY blew before a Rams player had possession of the ball. Yes, he definitely fumbled, but the play is DEAD when the whistle blows, right? This is the Jay Cutler-San Diego play from last year. The ref blew it dead, but the review showed he had fumbled. Shouldn't matter -- play's over as soon as he makes that call. Someone please confirm.

- Ravens seem like the team to beat after two weeks. Steelers can't run the ball to save their lives, the Giants (despite last week's domination of the Skins) look worse than last year and not better, the Pats look a little flawed, and I'm not rushing to judgement on Brett Favre yet.

- I heard Jerry Jones has a really bad cold. Yeah... try not to let him sleaze on you.

Ravi Kabob (II)

2009-09-19T06:37:00.000-07:00

My wife and I just ate at Ravi Kabob II in Ballston. For those not in the know, there are two Ravi Kabobs, and they are right across the street from each other. We'd been to Ravi I about a year ago and found it to be nothing short of spectacular. Warm, bustling vibe inside, and just really really terrific food. The ground meat kabobs (go chapli) are better than at most joints, and the lamb is very tasty. For sides, can't go wrong with the chick peas but I'd highly encourage trying whatever else they've got. It's one of the best ten places I've been to around D.C. and if it were remotely close to Capitol Hill I guarantee Judy and I would be speaking pretty decent Pashto. Tonight's the night before Eid al-Fitr, the holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so between that and the time we went (about 8:30, being a while after the fast is broken and a while longer until the next meal), the place was dead. We somehow waited nearly a half hour for the food, which had me gnashing my teeth and trying to read all the Arabic calligraphy I could around the place. But it came soon enough and was every bit as tasty as its big brother across the street. If you haven't been, make a point of doing so soon. It's right near the corner of Glebe Road and Route 50, next door to the CVS.

The meal was so good, in fact, that it got me wondering how picky eaters do it. I've got plenty of friends who I'd call varying degrees of picky, and this is meant as no offense to them, but I do find it difficult to imagine never having the desire to taste something completely new, something that you really couldn't guess how it might taste before you actually put it in your mouth. Now, I've had kabobs and particularly Pakistani-style kabobs before, so this wasn't exactly an adventure. But at some point in my life it was, and the sensation of trying something new and great then simply led me to wonder what else might be out there that I might not yet know about. I don't cook with particularly challenging flavors or spices most of the time, and my all-time favorite foods are probably still pork barbecue (for another day), country ham, and steamed crabs. I think I understand the appeal of the familiar and the comforting pretty well. But I think I like those things all the more because they're part of a wide range of tastes and flavors. I'd love to hear more from a self-proclaimed "picky eater", if there are any out there reading this.

Revisiting: Grandaddy

2009-09-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Grandaddy were one of my quintessential listens during college -- I picked up their penultimate LP, the remarkably consistent Sumday, on my drive down to Bonnaroo in Tennessee the summer after my sophomore year. There's not a bad cut in the bunch, and after losing my copy for a few years I bought it again at a yard sale some GW frat was having (kids these days...no respect for the classics). One great thing about them was that their we're-all-automatons-paranoia suited itself pretty well to the music video, and they put out a couple that are well worth a view if you've never seen them. In ten years, maybe splitting the difference between the Flaming Lips and Radiohead means they age rather less well (though can you really say the Lips are ageing well these days?), but I think they'll still have half a dozen tunes that merit revisiting.

Check 'em out:

"Now It's On"

"The Crystal Lake", dedicated to Ben and Claire Phillips

Welcome, folks

2009-09-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is my third -- fourth? -- stab at a blog. The first one kinda fizzled and later morphed into the far more successful and, at least amongst my group of friends, moderately appreciated Rockist Society blog. Is the Rockist Society still together you ask? Only time will tell.

Whereas that blog focused solely on music -- and sports, and politics, when we could tie them to music -- I'm going back to the basics here. I'm hoping to create an outlet to continue on with the music stuff when something comes my way, talk a little sports, talk a little food. And as many of you know, I've sorta switched careers (or at least career paths) and am pretty much full-time engulfed studying the Middle East and international affairs. I'll be bringing plenty of that to the table, as it seems fit, trying my best to shed some light on the less-well-lit corners of those two fields.

Please feel free to comment, to email me with comments, to suggest topics for a post, whatever. I'm just glad you're here.

Until I get some more content up here, check out the other stuff I've been working on: The DCist, for all you Washington-area folks, and AnthropologyWorks, a blog through the GW Culture in Global Affairs program that deals with the role of anthropology in international relations. It's interesting, I swear.