And I Ain't Talkin' About Vuvuzelas

So, there are two things really bugging me every time I watch the World Cup, and it seems they're not bothering anyone else.

1. There is a little snippet of music that you hear multiple times when watching a game, especially when it's going in and out of commercial, or to or from the announcers or whatever. It is played while the visual on the screen is the FIFA 2010 logo with the drawing of the player doing what I think is called a bicycle kick. I can't decipher the words or identify the language but the syllables sound something like "ih-no-mah-mah-my-eh." I actually wrote to ESPN to ask what it is, and they said, "That's the FIFA theme; contact them." Then I wrote to FIFA and they pointed me in the direction of some entirely different song,"Helele" by Velile & Safri Duo. I listened to that in its entirety on YouTube and heard nothing similar to the snippet played during the games. Please note, I am NOT referring to Shakira's "Waka Waka," the official song of the World Cup, nor K'Naan's "Waving Flag." WHAT IS THAT LITTLE BIT OF MUSIC?! And why can't the people who play it every freakin' day multiple times identify it? I need to write to ESPN again, clearly, and find someone who actually is resourceful to answer my question. Or I just need an ESPN insider to go look at a dang production log and tell me what it is. Please? Thanks.

2. Another thing you hear during every broadcast is a shout-out to the armed forces peeps who are watching from 175 countries around the world. Sometimes they even show a gathering of soldiers in Afghanistan excitedly watching and cheering for a U.S. goal or whatever. So, that's all spectacular and I'm happy for them that they get to watch it. (I know I listened to the Armed Forces Network radio station a ton while I was in Korea for a dose of news and music in English!) Here's the part that bugs me: um, 175 countries? Seriously?! Does it not disturb anyone else that U.S. armed forces have set up shop in 175 COUNTRIES around the globe? I mean for god's sake! And you wonder why people think you are violent imperialists? Sheesh. And I can't believe how nonchalantly it's mentioned, like it's the most natural thing in the world. What?!

These two things are bandied about repeatedly every single broadcast, and all anyone cares to inquire about is vuvuzelas? Really?

God, Schmod

I am blogging about this for the sole purpose of ranting without doing what I want to do, which is hit reply all to a family email. You might be thinking, "But doesn't your family read your blog?" You'd be surprised. Some of them do. Others are less supportive. I'm not certain my sister has ever read it. Anyway, if they get offended by something I write here, that's just too bad for them because it is my blog for my thoughts, whereas if I emailed it to them, it would be rude of me, you see.

So here's the deal. My grandpa lives alone in Utah. He is 94, very soon to turn 95, and has overall been doing pretty fabulous in these later years, but recently been declining physically and causing us all much concern. All of us in the next two generations send gang emails to one another including when we visit him, reporting on what we did while there in his town (from changing light bulbs to cooking him meals to taking him to a doctor's appointment) and in this past year the conversation about him needing to possibly move out of his house into assisted living has really been stepped up into high gear.

But my grandfather doesn't want to move into a random assisted living apartment, nor does he want to leave his Utah home nestled at the base of the beautiful Wasatch Front mountains, down the street from the cemetery where my grandma's grave is located, just to move to a town in Arizona or California where my mom/sister/uncle/cousins happen to live their lives. I totally understand this. Most of us can. So we have been trying to figure out what he needs in order to stay. Basically, he needs assistance, but he has been resistant to assistance, such as having a nurse or home aide or help with bathing or any of that. Part of it is not wanting to be a burden, part is probably a bit of denial, the usual. Anyway, here's my point.

This past week, a bunch of my family were there and accompanied him to his doctor and were extremely concerned about his physical state, including among other things dehydration and not sleeping enough and weakness and needing assistance. As my uncle and his wife (a professional nurse) worked on the situation, they happened to call (regarding another matter) and speak with one of our many relatives in that Utah town, a cousin's daughter, and it turned out her son-in-law just happened to finish nursing school and could use a job between now and when he is licensed in August. Long story short (way too late!) he has been hired to help as a kind of personal assistant, who can do all the things that will greatly assist my grandpa on a daily basis. And he's part of the extended family, as opposed to a stranger or company-provided nurse, so Grandpa's pleased and we're all greatly relieved and basically it's just a big ol' win-win situation for everybody. So you know what happens now?

The phone call to the cousin's daughter? Was "inspired." (FYI, for those unfamiliar with the Mormon connotation of that word, it doesn't mean "out of nowhere.")
My sister? "Wonders what Grandma thinks of all this." (Yes, been-dead-for-13-years Grandma.)
Those were the first hints. But a midday email today really just laid it out there. "God has answered [Grandpa's] prayers and our prayers by sending someone to help," is the word from my uncle and aunt.

I suspect there are two kinds of people reading this blog. Those who understand exactly why those statements make my skin crawl and those who agree with the statements. On second thought, maybe there's only one kind of people reading my blog and the latter have long since abandoned ship. Who knows? Here's what I know:

We --the 2nd and 3rd generations -- have all been working to problem-solve. Some of us have sacrificed great amounts of time and other things to do so. Some of us (like me!) have sounded like a broken record for nearly two years about doing more to put the word out to our cousins and extended family in that town about what Grandpa needs. I for one am totally stoked that we could tap into things like a cousin's son-in-law who lives two blocks away and just finished nursing school and needs a job for the next couple months. "Call it chance or call it fate," sings Mary-Chapin Carpenter, "either one is cause to celebrate..." But no - it's all because God has answered our prayers. Gaaaaaahhhhhh.

What does that mean, then? If my family had prayed harder last spring, the relative would have finished nursing school sooner? If they had waited to pray, another cousin would finish nursing school instead? (Actually, that part might be true. There are lots of cousins to go around in Utah families.) That Grandpa can somehow "deserve" or "not deserve" help based on how spiritual everyone is about it? That kind of thinking sickens me. Does it also mean that somehow during the past two years we just weren't good enough? I could go on. I'll stop now.

And I will send a shiny happy family email about the new hired assistant cousin, but I will not be joining the chorus of praise for some capricious God who has apparently decided we're worthy of a solution to our problem.

If you are not laughing out loud, do not type LOL

I don't usually blog about the internet (so meta!) but I think it's high time to comment on the use of "LOL." My basic comment is that you should stop using it if you misuse it. You know who you are. And if you don't, please, allow me to tell you.

First of all, it bothers me that people use "lol" as a synonym for "ha ha" or "I was being funny" (or more accurately "I think this is funny"). Wrong! It stands for "laughing out loud." It began in the early days of internet use to actually convey a message to someone: "What you just said was funny enough to make me laugh out loud, even though my conversation is silent, taking place over a computer network." It was never meant to be used in reference to your own things you are saying - it is about the other guy!

Secondly, it is overused. Third, it is inaccurate. Are people really laughing out loud when they type it? I think not! Fourth, would you do that in a real conversation? Every time you said something (you thought was) funny, would you alert everyone to that fact? Not unless you are really annoying you wouldn't. God, I want people to stop with the "lol."

From the Who Knew?! files...

I just read about an upcoming event in Boston at which a retired colonel will be speaking about the recent attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla. What struck me about the retired colonel was the biography of this speaker. Ready?

"Ann Wright, a retired US Army colonel, spent twenty-nine years in the military and later served as a high-ranking diplomat in the US State Department. In 2001, she helped oversee the opening of the US mission in Afghanistan. In 2003, she resigned her post at the State Department to protest the war in Iraq."

Really. A senior diplomat protesting Dubya's war? In 2003? Someone with decades of military and diplomatic experience sure that what Bush was doing was wrong? And it didn't get much press coverage? Why, I don't believe it.

Wait - you mean she wasn't the only one? There were other people in the U.S. government who strongly protested Dubya Bush, and they didn't get press coverage, either? No!

My point -- in case you are too dense to get it -- is that it was pretty easy to see in 2003 how pathetic the U.S. media were. At some point that year I gave up for a while on all U.S. news sources -- yes, including the New York Times, with all its WMDs talk, and NPR with its self-righteous nonsense about "fighting terrorism." But when it's not 2003, it's sometimes a little harder for us to see just how pathetically the U.S. media supports the government's propaganda and deception, whether about war, Gaza, or oil drilling. But we sure do like to criticize other countries and label them as "not free" and call their news reports propaganda.

Above Europe

Did I mention that I flew over the Alps? I really should have taken a picture when I was flying over the Alps. A-MA-ZING. Basically, when I flew from Istanbul to London after my Habitat Tajikistan journey, there was not a cloud over Europe. Seriously. Not a one. Clearest day ever -- and I had a window seat!

Because of the fancy little computer screen on the aircraft that shows roughly where the plane is on its route, I could see where we were in terms of countries and borders. Then I would bust out my Lonely Planet Europe on a Shoestring map to see more specifically. Oh, the mountains of Bulgaria. Oh, wow, that over there would be Sarajevo. Oh, hello, Slovenia, we'll see you in the World Cup in a few weeks. (Just kidding - I wasn't actually thinking about that at that moment, although it is what reminded me today about my flight over Europe, as I remembered flying over Slovenia.) Oh, here's Italy...wow, I think we're going right over....yup...there they are...OH MY GOD! The mountains! The snow-covered Alps! And they kept going, as we flew over Switzerland and then into France, where farmland resumed until there was water and then, England.

It took a little while to fly over the Alps. I spent the time comparing them to the mountains of Tajikistan that I had also been privileged to see from a window seat when we fled the polio left Dushanbe. The Tajikistan mountains were higher, and pointier. The Alps were rounder, and as we got to the outskirts I could spy a hamlet or two. Slovenia has some of the Alps, you know. Did you know?

So, anyway, yeah. I've been flying over mountains.

Laying Over: British Isles

On my recent trip, I mastered the art of leaving the airport during a layover. My days of roaming an international departures area for hours upon hours have come to an end. It's not that I didn't think of you as a second home, San Salvador Comalapa International. But you know, "home is where the heart is, and my heart had to roam" (sang Travis).

So on the way to Istanbul I had Dublin. My first time in Ireland, and wow! It was, as you may have heard, green. I had read that getting into the Dublin city center could take 45 minutes and probably 45 euros for a cab each way, so I opted to instead see a little town nearer the airport, Malahide. There was Malahide Castle - again, so much green! - and then actual Malahide was a seaside town where I wandered, visited the bookshop, visited the coffee shop, talked to amiable people, observed all the Irish people doing typical 11 a.m. weekday things like chatting at a sidewalk table, pushing the baby in a stroller, playing tennis, and so on. Then I sat by the sea to write postcards.

There was such a great feel to the place. I instantly wanted more of Ireland, from the second my cab pulled away from the airport. (This could be the danger of leaving the airports, I suppose.) It is also interesting to me to be in a place that feels foreign while still being in English. I like comparing it to how it feels to be in places that feel foreign partly because there is a language other than English. The vast majority of my foreign travel has been in countries with languages other than English. Of course, that being said, Ireland is actually totally bilingualed out. I quickly discovered that all signs are in two languages, English and Irish. Turns out Irish is an official language under the Constitution although it is the first language of relatively few people. The Irish names of towns on road signs and the like seem so charming and poetic to us United Statesians, for whatever reason, with our wistful love of Irish things. But I was so amused by this that I had to take a picture when it came to the H1N1 sign in the airport. I love that the word is "fliu."

On my way back from Istanbul, after Habitat, Tajikistan, mud, travels, Turkey, travails, Dushanbe, Garm, epiphanies, etc., I flew through Heathrow. Again - first time in England. Again - only five hours. Plus, I allowed extra time because it was Heathrow, and I am glad I did, since when I came back through security it was 3 p.m. and there were marauding bands of stroller-wielding flying families everywhere, so the lines took about eighty-five minutes. Anyway, the trick to leaving Heathrow quickly is to take the high-speed Heathrow Express train, which gets you to Paddington Station in central London in about fifteen minutes. It's genius! It also costs 18 pounds each way, 32 pounds round-trip. But I had been pretty careful about my budget, and, like I said, I had never seen London.

Well, now I have! I walked and walked and walked. Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament & Big Ben, and there it is - Westminster Abbey! This is when I became sad to not have a whole day or two there, because I would have loved to go inside and see my poets. I consider it a taste of London to whet my appetite.

Around Trafalgar Square there were a gazillion tourists and school groups on field trips, who amused me with their chatter. I was walking down the street behind one group of 10-11-ish-year-olds, and they were babbling with one another("My family's Welsh on both sides. My mom's full Welsh."), jostling, linking arms, when suddenly one of their little friends up ahead came running back saying, "Hey, you know what? That's 10 Downing Street!" and they all were immediately pulled away from whatever they were doing and into this moment at this site. They grabbed their cameras and one child said, "I wonder if David Cameron is there" in that way 'tweens have of saying things to reveal their knowledge which would be really annoying if done by adults.

Then, of course, I rode the Underground, bringing my subway-train-light-rail city tally to twelve. Speaking of Downing Street, remember when we were all led to an insanely criminal war while for some reason England blindly followed George W. Bush as a puppy follows a really twisted, wack-job of a master? Good times.

Newbery Medal Winners

Today I was startled to discover that I have read only ten of the 89 Newbery Medal-winning books. Ten! I am stunned. As a child I read a handful of them - but only a handful, clearly - and a few years ago while working at Borders I decided one of my life reading projects would be to read all of them. To that end, I acquired the first one, The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon (1922), which by the way is definitely one of my absolute favorites of the ten I have read (the other being Louis Sachar's Holes, 1999.) I read a couple more after that, too. And still - only ten?!

Clearly this Newbery-reading project deserves a little more time and attention from me.

How many have you read?

Good Sports

And now for something (completely?) different: USC vs. North Korea

As Brian and I like to remind each other, courtesy of a fabulously hilarious Onion commentary, "Professional sports is very interesting." (You should definitely click on that link to read it after you read this blog entry of mine.) There is certainly a lot of sports excitement swirling around me right now. For one thing, the Chicago Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup after a decades-long drought. Good for them! I witnessed much joyous revelry just outside our apartment windows on Wednesday night after the Blackhawks' victory. Then, of course, there are the NBA Finals, although I am still a little too devastated by the Phoenix Suns' loss to really get into the whole Amazing-Happening. I really, really thought one-eyed Steve Nash and his team of BFFs were going to do it this year. Crushing! Steve does get to report on the World Cup from his birthplace, South Africa, though.

And that is biggest of all, of course, right now: the World Cup started today! (And I correctly predicted the 1-1 tie between South Africa and Mexico!...on some silly Facebook app that rewards me with nothing.) For those who haven't heard, I even went so far as to invest in the World Cup this time around. Ever since attending a World Cup qualifier while we were in San Pedro Sula, I have deemed myself a new fan of the Honduras national team and I am cheering for them, in addition to the U.S.A. In consultation with Brian, I placed a small wager on Honduras getting out of their group, and we think that has a chance.

I also have what most call a foolhardy bet on North Korea to win it all, because, as I joked, with a mere $10 bet I could pay off my law school loans if I win. In case you aren't aware, that's because North Korea is the longest of shots. Not only are they not a powerhouse, and maybe not even good, but they are in the toughest group, with Brazil, Portugal, and Ivory Coast. (For those not in the loop: yes, the Cote d'Ivoire is good, too. North Korea is totally cursed.)

Here's my point: yes, part of me acknowledges that my North Korea bet is a bit of a sarcastic move. But there is more to it than that. It is also a symbolic statement about the way much of the world - and I daresay many of you - write off North Korea in the geo-political scheme of things. When I first went to (South) Korea (it's one country, people! It should be again!) and read about the extremely limited options for visiting "The North," the general response from people was one of horror: "Why would you want to go there?!" I hate that mentality. I got a fair amount of it about Cuba a decade ago and hated it then, too. First of all, if you've got issues with a country's government, you don't have to hate its citizens. They are just people, too! I was similarly adamantly opposed to any and all threats to boycott the Olympics in Beijing. The best thing you can do is gather dozens of countries together for the Olympic games, in peace and friendly competition. (Or have your Korean students write about it.)

In fact, the minute someone ever says, "Why would you want to go there?" I take it as a sign that I most definitely want to go "there," wherever it is, because people in the world need to travel, and need to meet other people in the world, and should be free to visit any country they want to. ANY country - including Cuba, or Iran, or North Korea.

Travel embargoes may be the dumbest thing I've ever seen passed off as legitimate national policy. The thinking seems to go like this: "We, the U.S.A., are awesome and free. That country there? They are not free. They are bad and terrible and monstrous. Just to prove how awesome and free we are and how not-free they are, we forbid our citizens to go there." Hello?

Because North Korea is such a "pariah" and really, more accurately, such an unknown entity to so many, I will cheer for them even more.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my alma mater USC is having a little trouble in its own sports departments, you may have heard. The institution and some of the athletes - who were decidedly not supposed to be professionals and/or getting paid - committed a bunch of dastardly deeds and are now being punished -- oh, wait. Actually most of the wrongdoers have LEFT THE UNIVERSITY and the punishment is being meted out on some athletes playing there or being recruited to play there now. I know a two-year ban on post-season play sends quite a message, but it doesn't really effectively punish its target. In that sense, it's a lot like some U.S. foreign policy.

Meanwhile, just as things were getting underway in South Africa, tragedy struck. Nelson Mandela's great-granddaughter died in a car accident, now under investigation for possible drunk driving guilt by the chauffeur, on her way back from the big, celebratory, star-studded World Cup kick-off concert. Nelson Mandela himself understandably did not therefore attend the South Africa-Mexico match today. I have been thinking so much about him over the past year, and especially in connection with his nation's sports after seeing Invictus and reading Playing the Enemy. I am so sad for him, and wonder how much tragedy and sorrow one amazing, peaceful, brilliant man has to suffer in his lifetime? He is so much more newsworthy than Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo's egos.

Let's all think about our sanctions and bans and boycotts, and more importantly, let's all come together to watch the world play nicely, in friendly competition. Let's admire the magic of professional sports, where people are pushed to be better than they are. I hope that the guilty Trojan parties can acknowledge that they made mistakes, and then strive to be better. I hope the NCAA can acknowledge its mistakes, too. I hope that North Korean political leaders can acknowledge their mistakes, and most of all I hope the bullying U.S. can be kind enough and open enough and honest enough to acknowledge its many U.S. mistakes and give North Korea a reason to play along, nicely.

I shall cheer for my team U.S.A. - but I shall also cheer for "my" other teams. I like the World Cup. I like the world.