June 2006 Archives

...since there's no intelligent life there, anyway:

Jewish family flees Delaware school district's aggressive Christianity

A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they're suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation. Both families are asking relief from "state-sponsored religion."

...

Among numerous specific examples in the complaint was what happened at plaintiff Samantha Dobrich's graduation in 2004 from the district's high school. She was the only Jewish student in her graduating class. The complaint relates that local pastor, Jerry Fike, in his invocation, followed requests for "our heavenly Father's" guidance for the graduates with:

"I also pray for one specific student, that You be with her and guide her in the path that You have for her. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name."

What turds, singling out the Jewish girl like that...but there's more:

The district board announced the formation of a committee to develop a religion policy. And the local talk radio station inflamed the issue.

On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meetng. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.

The complaint recounts that the raucous crowd applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him: "take your yarmulke off!" His statement, read by Samantha, confided "I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy."

...

A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might "disappear" like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. O'Hair disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.

...

Classmates accused Alex Dobrich of "killing Christ" and he became fearful about wearing his yarmulke, the complaint recounts. He took it off whenever he saw a police officer, fearing that the officer might see it and pull over his mother's car. When the family went grocery shopping, the complaint says, "Alexander would remove the pin holding his yarmulke on his head for fear that someone would grab it and rip out some of his hair."

nuclear testing, in this school district. not like they'll hurt anything useful or redeeming.

...it's an interview with Evangelical author Randall Balmer, who is promoting his new book, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament.

Evangelical: Religious Right Has Distorted the Faith

President Bush and the Republican Party find strong support among evangelical voters. But in his new book, Thy Kingdom Come, author Randall Balmer says that allegiance is misplaced.

"I don't find much that I recognize as Christian" in the religious right, says Balmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College, Columbia University and contributing editor to Christianity Today.

He says blind allegiance to the Republican Party has distorted the faith of politically active evangelicals, leading them to misguided positions on issues such as abortion and

I like how he takes Evangelicals to task for being "pro-life" with respect to abortion but so silent on the subject of torture.

Another interesting aspect of this particular interview is that the reporter is NPR veteran Linda Wertheimer and not "religion" reporter Barbara Bradley Haggerty. Haggerty received some serious and scathing criticism for some atrocious reporting on Kerry in the 2004 election, as well as extremely biased reporting on "Intelligent Design" in 2005. Her ethics have been questioned because of outside "seminars" in which she's participated.

When all this blew up, NPR glossed over Haggerty's misdeeds, but it appears from her workload (her last story was in March) that she's been benched.

The link has an excerpt from his book, as well. Interesting reading.

From Morning Edition this morning:

Supreme Court Sides with Worker in Retaliation Suit

The Supreme Court rules that a company must pay damages to a female employee it punished after she filed a discrimination complaint. The original ruling upheld by the court ordered the company to pay $43,000 to the woman.

This decision was an 8-1. The one? Samuel Alito. "President Kerry" would not have appointed such a piece of crap to the nation's highest court.

Via Avarosis, I read this gem from the NYT:

A bipartisan Senate report released on Thursday documented more than $5.3 million in payments to Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and a leading Republican Party strategist, from an influence-peddling operation run by the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian tribe casinos.

The report by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee portrayed Mr. Reed, now a candidate for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in his home state of Georgia, as a central figure in Mr. Abramoff's lobbying operation, the focus of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.

Mr. Reed was depicted as having used his contacts among conservative Christian groups in the South and Southwest beginning in the late 1990's to block the opening or expansion of casinos that might compete with the gambling operations of Mr. Abramoff's clients.

OK, a news article that portrays Ralph Reed as a piece of crap is hardly news. Neither is the conclusion drawn by Avarosis:

Ralph Reed really is the face of the GOP.

Of course Reed is the face of the GOP. He's a lying, thieving piece of crap. But extend the notion that he's the "face of the GOP" for a moment. What we've got here is a guy who parlayed his relationship with the Christian Right into serious profitability as a thief lobbyist. He used his connections with the Christian Coalition and other fundigelicals not to advance their agenda, but to play one tribal gambling interest against another.

Reed and the GOP political/lobbying establishment have that much contempt for their party's base that they'll roll them for profit.

and it's well-deserved. There are a lot of adjectives one can use to describe Santorum (and his name is even a sexual term these days), but I don't think I would have included "stupid" as one of them, until now. I'm giving Prof. Cole's top-ten points without the commentary on each, but you can read it all at your leisure.

Emphasis and links are Professor Cole's

For Outgoing Senator Santorum: Top Ten Ways We Know Saddam Did not Have WMD

1. The authors of Cobra II show that before the 2003 Iraq War, Saddam called his top generals together and let them know that he did not in fact have any WMD any more. They were allegedly shaken and disturbed.

2. The Saddam regime faced certain destruction in March-April 2003, but no Iraqi military unit deployed any WMD to save themselves.

3. All searches of all tagged facilities in post-war Iraq found that the weapons programs had all been closed down by the mid-1990s.

4. On September 30, 2004, the U.S. Iraq Survey Group Final Report concluded, "ISG has not found evidence that Saddam Husayn (sic) possessed WMD stocks in 2003, but the available evidence from its investigation—including detainee interviews and document exploitation—leaves open the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq although not of a militarily significant capability." Let me put that in bold for Mssrs. Santorum and Hoekstra: not of a militarily significant capability.

5. What most people mean by weapons of mass destruction is nukes. Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program after the United Nations weapons inspectors dismantled it in the early 1990s.

6. Remember those "mobile biological weapons labs"? When Irv Lewis Libby, now in custody, realized that UN inspectors were finding no evidence for biological weapons labs, he made up this silly idea of mobile labs. Biological weapons labs need a clean room. Where would you put that on a winnebago? And, would you really want your germ lab to hit a pothole? In reality? The trailers were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, just as the Iraqis had said.

7. Chief inspector David Kay has already admitted that "We were almost all wrong"! Kay staked his professional reputation on there being WMD in Iraq, and he actually chased it on the ground for months and months. If he could have found any shred to uphold his basic human dignity, he would have. He couldn't.

8. Not only has the Department of Defense admitted it, so has the CIA.

9. Chemical weapons are battlefield weapons, not weapons of mass destruction:

10. Powell and Rice admitted as much in spring of 2001!

Everybody wave bye-bye to Ricky now!

this is the clip from Wednesday night's TDS of the segment on a House of Representatives hearing on video games. I'm sure there have been equally stupid hearings in the interim, but the last time I remember one this funny was when then-Sen. Al Gore held a series of hearings so his wife could prattle on about music lyrics. At that time, Gore got himself bitch-slapped by Frank Zappa (who appeared as a witness). The bigots and fools in this hearing get Stewart. That elected representatives of any part of this country are capable of the racially offensive remarks in this hearing in 2006 totally amazes me.

Stewart is spot-on when he said, "Seriously, the House of Representatives is filled with insane jackasses."

From The Stranger via Avarosis:

Amendment: Congress shall recognize no votes or opinions about the sanctity and preservation of marriage from its members who have been divorced and/or remarried while their first spouses are still alive. (To say nothing of those who are married while not-so-secretly fucking someone on their staff.)

heh. indeedy.

Mr. Broder:

I take great exception to your characterization of Ms. Donna Brazile in your column of 22-June. As I'm sure you're well aware, Ms. Brazile is a 30-year veteran of presidential campaigns, most notably serving as one of the major architects of the Gore-Lieberman campaign in 2000. Your description of her as a "civil rights activist" is essentially a code-word dismissal of her as a black female whose opinions have no merit. I seriously doubt you would characterize a white male political operative with the gravitas of Ms. Brazile in such a manner.

Your column decries the lack of intellectual discipline among the writers of "The Democratic Strategist." Would that you would impose upon yourself some of the discipline you find lacking in that publication.

I am copying your ombudsman's office on this e-mail, because your use of such racial code-word tactics should not be acceptable policy for the Washington Post.

Sincerely,
YatPundit

There's a lot more about Broder's column that's off the mark, but he's entitled to his opinion. Code-word racism is unacceptable, however, if he claims to be a journalist. If he wants to hang out a shingle as a partisan piece of shit like Coulter or Hannity, that's different, then. We expect racism from their ilk.

Got this email from PFAW this morning, please consider signing their petition:

One of the best ways to be fiscally responsible is to minimize deficit spending. Leaving the merits of spending trillions of dollars on war in Iraq aside, when you're running up deficits that your grand- and great-grandchildren will be paying, it is irresponsible to eliminate a $100billion/year source of revenue.

That's what the Republicans want to do by repealing the Estate Tax. The Republican Party has been very successful at convincing the public that this tax threatens the future of their families. The fact that 99% of Americans will never be in the situation where they will have to pay the estate tax does not matter, because everyone hopes for the great American dream of being a millionaire.

So, if 99% of the country doesn't pay estate taxes, who benefits if the Republicans have their way? Vice President Cheney's estate would save between $13 million and $61 million, and Donald Rumsfeld's estate would save $32 million and $101 million (depending on precisely how the estate is calculated). Exxon-Mobil's former chairman Lee Raymond's heirs would gain $164 million.

We can't afford to fund grants for college tuitions, and the Republicans want to give money to themselves and their biggest contributors.

Of course they are. Democrats would most certainly do everything in their power to make sure the Eebil Coloreds don't vote:

House Delays Renewal of Voting Rights Act

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republican leaders on Wednesday postponed a vote on renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act after GOP lawmakers complained it unfairly singles out nine Southern states for federal oversight.

Yeah, we don't need federal oversight of elections in Florida, do we?

Would this have happened in a Democratic-controlled Senate? There's no difference between the parties, after all...

Senate rejects bid to raise minimum wage WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled Senate refused Wednesday to raise the minimum wage, rejecting an election-year proposal from Democrats for the first increase in nearly a decade. ADVERTISEMENT

The vote was 52-46, eight short of the 60 needed.

So, MySpace is being sued:

A Texas woman has filed a $30m lawsuit against MySpace.com after her 14-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by someone she met through the site.

The suit alleges that MySpace does not do enough to protect its under-age users, according to a report in the Austin American Statesman, and includes news reports of other sexual assaults that took place after people met on the MySpace network.

My first thought was that the suit should be summarily dismissed, but then I started thinking about similar places where people gather, and where they could be victims of crime. If a shopping mall has inadequate lighting or security, they're on the hook if a shopper is assaulted in the parking lot. It can be argued that MySpace has "inadequate lighting," in that user info is not verified, and it would be very easy for someone to pose as a minor.

HOWEVER...

...and it's a big one. I usually don't want to play a lawyer on TV or anything, but I'd love to be the one who deposes the mother of this girl who was assaulted. I know the questions I'd ask:

Do you monitor your daughter's on-line chat activity?
Do you monitor your daughter's e-mail?
Were you aware that your daughter planned to meet someone she met on-line?
Did you accompany your daughter to this meeting?

Given that the girl was assaulted, the answers to all four questions would likely be "no."

At some point, this country needs to have a serious debate on the subject of proper parenting in the information age. Obviously there are serious issues here dealing with where to draw the line with a child's freedom of expression and development. Still, the on-line world is clearly not a safe place, and for parents to be totally blind to the threats presented by the Internet to their children is negligence.

So many lawmakers in this country want to punish parents for behavior that they believe endangers children, but they totally ignore the lack of parental supervision of a child's Internet activities.

There's another aspect of this investigation I'd like to see developed: where were the cops? We regularly hear about alleged predators who chat up on-line personas they believe to be children, only to be arrested when they show up to meet little "Susie" or "Timmy" and it turns out to be a local detective. Given that assaults such as this MySpace incident still occur, are there are more predators than law enforcement can ever hope to catch, is law enforcement only ensaring the stupid ones here?

In the meantime, I look over my 11-year old's friends' lists. I don't read every one of his e-mails, but I can access his account at anytime if I have concerns. We've had a serious talk about sexual predators, and regularly discuss the issue. It's all about involvement, and I have serious problems with a woman who was not involved getting rich off her daughter's misfortune.

In their platform for the 2006 elections, "A New Direction for America," Congressional Democrats stand for raising the minimum wage. The current minimum wage has not been adjusted since 1997.

There is overwhelming support among voters for increasing the minimum wage. In fact, sixteen states have adopted minimum wage laws setting the standard higher than the federal $5.15/hour. In November of 2004, voters approved a ballot initiative raising the minimum wage even though Bush carried the state.

Those who would argue that there are no differences between the two parties should remember that 36 million Americans live in poverty and 40 million live without adequate health insurance. For the last five years, Republican-controlled Congresses have passsed cost-of-living increases for themselves, but have refused to pass adjustments to the minimum wage. Not only have Republican Senators refused to increase the minimum wage, but their leadership has actually advocated abolishing the minimum wage for service industry employees earning tips.

Had to run downtown today, and I encountered this convoy on I-10 near the cemeteries:

40+ HMMWVs were heading into town, courtesy of the Louisiana National Guard.

Joe DiGenova is out and about, floating the trial balloon for pardoning Scooter Libby.

Salon makes the point that it's all in the timing:

But wouldn't Bush just wait to pardon Libby on his way out of the White House in 2009 -- especially if Libby's lawyers can drag out appeals to keep him out of prison until then? One lawyer familiar with the Plame case says it may depend on the congressional elections in November. If Republicans maintain control of Congress, then Bush might want to pardon Libby before his trial to prevent Dick Cheney and Karl Rove from having to testify and to prevent the public disclosure of embarrassing information about the role of the vice president's office in the discrediting of Joseph Wilson. But if Democrats win either house -- and with it, the power to launch investigations -- Bush might want to wait on pardoning Libby so as to have the existence of a trial and subsequent appeals as an excuse for not cooperating with congressional investigators.

Libby's fate could be an interesting barometer on how the White House reads the upcoming fall election season.

One of the things that most Democratic candidates can count on is that they're going to become subjected to attacks, both personal and on their positions. National campaigns have gotten increasingly ugly since the 1980s. The 1988 presidential election was the beginning of the all out "say anything to get elected" style of campaigning the Republicans now regularly use in elections from President all the way to local school boards.

Democrats' response to this style of campaigning has been either fight or flee, with most national-level candidates in recent years opting for flee. Gov. Dukakis opted to retreat to his office on Beacon Hill rather than respond to the personal attacks aimed at him by surrogates of Bush 41. That strategy was as effective as Jimmy Carter's refusal to campaign in 1980.

In the 2000 primary season, the Bush campaign used push-polls and other attack strategies to destroy Sen. John McCain. They then turned their wrath on Al Gore in the general election. Gore also chose to flee, rather than fight, losing his home state and allowing Bush to win by the narrowest margin in the history of presidential elections.

In 2002, Saxby Chambliss had the audacity to characterize Sen. Max Cleland as unpatriotic because he objected to various provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Cleland listened to his "advisors," and did not defend himself. Chambliss now represents Georgia in the US Senate.

In 2004, a new term for attack politics entered the vocabulary, "Swift-Boating." Surrogates for Bush 43 successfully characterized candidate John Kerry's honorable and heroic service in the US Navy as opportunism, going so far as to suggest that some of the wounds for which he was awarded multiple Purple Heart medals were self-inflicted. Kerry also chose to flee from these charges.

The irony of these attacks is that they've often come from people whose personal records are as questionable as the attacks they make. Saxby Chambliss, received medical deferments which enabled him to avoid military service in Vietnam, but now he considers himself a "recreational runner." Rather than defend himself against Chambliss, Cleland's was advised to ignore his attacks. Some say that showing the hypocrisy of the attackers is tantamount to slander.

But what is slander?

slan der n.

1. Law. Oral communication of false statements injurious to a person's reputation.
2. A false and malicious statement or report about someone.

Consider the mission statement of one of the most effective websites framing the debate in the 2006 election season, Santorum Exposed:

our mission here is simple: To shine a light on the facts about Rick Santorum's extreme positions, failed policies and hypocritical statements -- and let the facts speak for themselves.

Posts from this site include items on Santorum's behavior on his book-signing tour, photos of his abandoned house in Pennsylvania, comparing it to his massive home in Virginia, and commentary on his use of corporate jets.

Do these posts rise to the level of slander? The facts related therein are not in dispute. Is it malicious to expose hypocrisy?

By contrast, let's examine a true example of slander against Santorum. In repsonse to some of Santorum's outrageous remarks on homosexuality, some activists fought back, crudely converting Santorum's name into a sexual term. It's damn funny, and quite appropriate, but this definition of "santorum," is a definitely a below-the-belt shot.

When a politician fires off attacks, they leave themselves vulnerable to attack, and their opponents then have the right to expose the hypocrisy of their positions. There's a huge grey area, here. Consider this snarky graphic:

It's posted in response to the Repubican's consistent cutting of veterans' benefits. Even those who believe Bush went AWOL from the TANG do not characterize his behavior as desertion. A graphic such as this is arguably "stooping to their level."

There are times when "stooping to their level" can be viewed as a morale-boost for those in the campaign trenches. Does this type of humor, (or associating Santorum's name with fecal matter) have a place in mainstream discourse? Certainly not.

That doesn't alter the fact that the jokes are funny, though.

Leader Pelosi's office has released the Democratic Party's plan, "A New Direction for America" (link is to a PDF copy of the plan). Here are some of the high points of the plan, and some Republican positions by contrast:

credit to Andy Ostroy for the bullet points of this table.

in business networking, one of the basic strategies is for a businessperson to develop an "elevator speech," that is, a 30-60 second answer to the question, "what do you do for a living?" It's called an "elevator" speech because when you encounter someone in an elevator, you usually only have their attention for 30-60 seconds.

If you can put together a 60-second spot on what you do and why people need your product and/or service, you've jumped so far ahead of your competition it isn't funny.

Josh Marshall has nailed the "elevator speech" for Democrats this year:

Let's be honest. What is this election about?

It's not about the Democrats. 2008 may be about the Democrats. Maybe 2010. Not 2006. 2006 is about George W. Bush and the Republican party. And, specifically, how many people are fed up with what's happened over the last six years and want to make a change? The constitution gives the people only one way to do that in 2006 -- put a hard brake on the president's power by turning one or both houses of Congress over to the opposition party.

This is it. It's a place from which progressives can begin to repair the damage done to this country by five years of BushCo.

The first is that, if Italia beat the Czechs and USA beat Ghana in WC2006, USA will advance to the second round.

The second is that the Italians are demanding some accountability from the disrespectful piece of shit that lives in the white house:

Italian bid to indict US soldier

Italian prosecutors have called for a US soldier to stand trial for the killing of an Italian intelligence officer in Baghdad in 2005.

Nicola Calipari, 51, was shot dead at a US roadblock while escorting Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had been released by kidnappers in Iraq.

Italy and the US government disputed the circumstances of his death.

Italian prosecutors want a US marine, identified as Mario Lozano, to go on trial for the March 2005 killing.

Last week Mr Lozano's court-appointed lawyer, Fabrizio Cardinali, said he expected his client to be tried in absentia for murder and attempted murder.

I would like to believe the US government's account of the incident, that it was a terrible tragedy, but they've lied about so many things that the Italians must be given leave to investigate, even if their conclusions are off the mark.

And John Murtha is off to a good start on this, with his response to documented draft-dodger Karl Rove:

MURTHA: He’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside, saying stay the course. That’s not a plan. … We’ve got to change direction. You can’t sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying 70 pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels hit with IEDs every day, seeing their friends blown up, their buddies blown up — and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.

The GOP will continue to follow Rove's lead, that any change in the disrespectful piece of crap's policies is "cutting and running." Murtha slapping Rove around is a start, but it needs a hard follow-up with progressive veterans like Paul Hackett and others to lend their voices to a practical withdrawl policy.

Allen in VA is a good example, as cited today by DailyKos. Referring to an article in MyrtleBeachOnline.com, Markos quotes Larry Sabato, a PoliSci prof at UVA:

"He has never changed and Virginia has. Virginia has moderated. Allen has boxed himself in with 97 percent support for the Bush administration. Now, President Bush is below 40 percent approval in Virginia. And the Iraq war is unpopular, even in the Tidewater, which is a very military area."

If VA has changed, you can bet that a lot of other places have also. People are sick of war, high gas prices, and the total lack of respect for the rule of law that this government has demonstrated.

What's the impact of Bush's disasters on a pol who tightly aligns himself with the disrespectful piece of crap? Look at Allen's numbers:

Rasmussen. 6/14. MoE 4.5% (4/11 results)

Allen (R) 51 (50)
Webb (D) 41 (30)

Webb is up 11%.

Tar them with the failures of their Leader.

here's one that's a winner: Clintonism:

As a political formula, its record is just as impressive. Not only was Bill Clinton the first Democratic president in 60 years to be reelected, but consider this: In the three elections before 1992, Democrats averaged 58 electoral votes. In 1992 and 1996, Clinton averaged 375. He won a dozen red states twice.

So many of us were disappointed in Al Gore in 2000 because he didn't unleash the Big Dog. Well, it's six years later, and the immoral behavior of the disrespectful piece of shit who lives in the white house has long overshadowed the blue dress.

And why not Clintonism? After all, it's not a bad way to live:

Clintonism has never been about mushy compromise and electoral expedience. From the beginning, it has been a tough-minded attempt to modernize liberalism and solve the nation's problems. Today, Democratic governors and legislatures nationwide are applying its principles in new initiatives to reinvent government, reform high school education and promote college.

Where Clintonism is weak would be in Iraq. Since the Clinton administration did not have to deal with a protracted military operation of this magnitude, there's no model. Democratic presidential candidates will still need to clearly articulate a strategy for getting us out of the mess Bush has created.

For 2006, however, going with what has worked in the past is a good start for the future.

TROLL REPELLANT: Let's try to have a bit more than half-truths and revisionist history in response to this, please.

MAN SURRENDERS IN COP KILLING

We've heard all about how all our crime "problems" went to Planet Hooston after the storm. Looks like they've decided to send us one of their lovely citizens in return:

A Houston man accused of killing one St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff's deputy, wounding another and invading two Jefferson Parish homes, surrendered quietly Friday morning as more than 100 police officers surrounded the River Ridge neighborhood where he had taken an 81-year-old man hostage.

and now, it's they they shut the hell up. Or, at the least, send some money to this deputy's family.

Wonkette's still on the story of a values-conservative lobbyist (whose clients have included the Family Research Council) who allegedly solicited two young ladies in DC for a threesome.

What you gotta love about this guy is that he used his REAL NAME and gave the women his REAL business card!

Obviously this guy's never seen those Vegas commercials about the girl who goes by all the names of TV characters...

Then you've got the campaign manager for an AZ Republican Congressional candidate who was convicted of having sex with two teenage girls.

Truly the party of family values, to be sure.

eyes on the prize, folks:

Issue #1 is Bush. Issue #2 is everything else. Until Bush no longer has a Republican majority in the House and the Senate to rubber stamp nearly everything he wants, your opinions and ideas mean squat. No. Less than squat.

Make reining in Bush *the* issue. Republicans in Congress will do whatever Bush wants, but the country is fed up with what Bush wants. They've seen how much damage he causes. Only Democratic majorities in Congress can prevent him from wreaking even worse havoc on the country. Bush is the issue. And hoo boy! has Bush made the your job incredibly easy:

read the rest, it's a good reminder. We need to focus. We need at least one house of Congress in November to re-gain a foothold.

Oh, let's face it, with George W. Bush's foreign policy and wars, it's not hard for the rest of the world to look at us and shake their heads sadly.  But it's our own international cluelessness that causes the rest of the word to disrespect us at a personal level.

On NPR's news show, "All Things Considered" on Friday, there was a segment entitled "Timing Travel: Avoid the Hot Currency Market."  One of the travel professionals interviewed was Laura Kidder of Fodor's.  When asked by host Melissa Block where these folks are off to this summer, Kidder says she's off to Berlin for the World Cup.  She then spews this gem:

"My biggest problem is figuring out who I actually want to root for."

ummm...Ms. Kidder, this is a tournament between NATIONAL teams.  If you're from the US, it really shouldn't take much thought.  In your travels, do you see many English, Dutch, Brazilians, French, Ghanans, or Aussies wondering who they're supporting?  I wonder how many people on Trinidad went to the pub yesterday to watch the match, thinking, "gee, who am I going to root for?"  (Once our sides are knocked out, of course, there are tough decisions, of course, but I'm still wearing my US strip when I go to Waardenburg, Holland at the end of the month, even if we don't advance.)

The American attitude towards football is usually either arrogantly aloof, or just clueless.  Some Americans are well aware of what La Copa Mundial is and its impact on the rest of the world and they simply reject it.  The fact that the Dallas Mavericks are in the NBA finals, or whether Barry Bonds should be in baseball record books is more important to them.  They reject futbol as a "major" sport. 

Then there are the people who are totally clueless.  They simply have no idea of just how seriously the rest of the world takes this tournament.  Why should they, after all, the matches are on the "other" sports channel (ESPN2), and the commentary there is horrid.  The teams of our first division league would be relegated to the second- or third-division level in other strong football countries.  Many of our better players have to go to Europe to practice their craft at a world-class level.

When the US side advanced to the quarterfinals in 2002, a lot of people were annoyed, arguing that America as a country didn't deserve the glory.  If it happens again this year, they'll be right.  Again.