Schadenfreude Wet Spot

I fear that I have been granted indirect superhero powers over inconsequential people and things. I sports hated on the anti-American leftist druggie Maradona and within one month; he has one of the worst coaching performances in World Cup history, humiliates Argentina's leftist president, visits with his 2nd favorite dictator who is actually having a worse month than Maradona given that his support of FARC was exposed at a recent OAS meeting -- see Vargas Llosa article -- was dumped as Argentina's coach and now, in the most predictable ugly ending since one of Rev. Wright's parishioners declared his candidacy for the presidency, Maradona has turned on those who gave him the opportunity for which he was not qualified and did not deserve.

Dear Maradona,

You're traveling through another dimension; a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead [thanks to the ADA Act of 1990, signposts are now enano-friendly], your next stop, ... the Quinque-Cocal drug treatment center, in Holguin, 470 miles (750 km) east of Havana.

So who or what to focus on next? Dear Marlins ownership....

ESPN article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

-----------------------------------------------
Chronicle of a death foretold - by Sam Kelly
Thursday, July 29, 2010

On the 26th July, workers from all walks of life took to the streets of Buenos Aires for a political march to mark the 58th anniversary of the death of María Eva Duarte de Perón, better known outside Argentina as Evita. It was fitting, in a way, that the same date was ultimately the day that sealed the fate of one of the few Argentines who can match (or exceed) Evita for popular mass appeal. Diego Maradona's reign as Argentina manager officially ended on Tuesday the 27th, but the damage was done the day before.

Julio Grondona, the president of the Argentine FA, engineered the decision to suit his own ends, having finally lost patience with Maradona's turbulent managerial style. Whether the news has been reported in your part of the world as Maradona quitting, Maradona being sacked, or whatever, make no bones about it; he was pushed. And there's no better boss in the world at pushing his staff out than Julio Humberto Grondona. In thirty-one years in charge Grondona has been the only public official of any description in Argentina to remain in office through military dictatorships and the change to democracy which brought governments of all colours to power. What's more, he's remained close to all of them. And he's done so without ever sacking a manager.

Diego Maradona's contract expired on the 30th June. That his contract talks only happened on Monday was partly his own fault. Whilst AFA directors were unimpressed with the World Cup campaign, Grondona wanted to renew Maradona's contract even against the wishes of his own board. Next year the elections for the presidency of the organisation are coming up, and Grondona seemed afraid of the political fallout should he be the man to sack the greatest and most adored figure in the history of Argentine football.

The events of the last week or so have changed Grondona's opinion somewhat, though. One reason for the delay in the meeting to discuss Maradona's new contract was that Diego took a flight to Venezuela to meet his good friend Hugo Chávez, rather than stay at home to talk. During the delay, though, he did help some form of "dialogue" along. He phoned up a TV chat show, and made his position clear; "If they even touch the kit man," he told the panel, "I'll walk." According to Maradona himself, Grondona's opening gambit in the contract talks when the two met a couple of days later was, "first of all, the kit man's got to go".

Maradona has somewhat hoist himself by his own petard in many ways, then. It wasn't only his words on that chat show - El Show Del Fútbol - that helped his bosses get rid of him. A prominent panellist on the show is Oscar Ruggeri, a man who'd never been a TV personality before this year. Ruggeri was the man Maradona had wanted as his assistant, but whom Grondona put his foot down over and wouldn't allow onto the technical team. His solution? Ruggeri got a job as a TV "journalist" and, when he travelled to South Africa in that capacity, was the only journalist Maradona allowed in to "watch" the squad train.

Not only that, but the network Ruggeri works for - and therefore the network Maradona phoned to give his exclusive bargaining plea to - is TyC Sports, the cable company. Some readers might remember them from this time last year, when the Argentine championship was delayed by a week as Grondona, backed by the government, tore up the TV contract with TyC in order to re-sell the broadcasting rights to the state-owned channels. Ever since, TyC have been heavily critical of the AFA. Maradona's choice of media outlet seemed calculated to irritate his employers.

It would also have irritated the Argentine government. Like the governments of Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay (all of whom enjoyed much better than expected World Cup campaigns), Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Argentine president, invited her national team's manager and any players who were still in the country to attend a function at the presidential residence in Buenos Aires for a photo opportunity. After the side had been welcomed back to the country with an outpouring of support, it seemed a great chance for her to pick up a few votes by gladhanding. But her invitation was flatly ignored by Maradona, and instead Chávez was the first president he met after the World Cup.

After supporting him publicly for so long, Cristina suddenly began to feel that Maradona perhaps wasn't such a great vote-grabber after all. With Grondona also tiring of him, this was only a matter of time. And following Maradona's televised declarations, the job became simple for Grondona; ever the Godfather figure, when he finally got Maradona at the meeting on Monday, he simply made him an offer he knew he couldn't...um...accept.

So what next? Favourite for the job is Estudiantes manager (and former Sheffield United and Leeds playmaker) Alejandro Sabella, but if he stays with his club then Diego Simeone, Miguel Angel Russo, or youth team coach Sergio Batista could all come into play. Maradona, meanwhile, has offers on the table from the Mexican national team and Napoli, if rumours are to be believed. Whilst Grondona hasn't come out of this looking all that good, Maradona has at least remained true to himself; a press conference on Tuesday evening saw him continue to defend his back room staff to the hilt.

The quote on all the t-shirts that'll be on sale in central Buenos Aires by Wednesday afternoon was this: "Grondona lied to me, [national team co-ordinator Carlos] Bilardo betrayed me." Maradona's looked out of his depth a lot of the time, but the men running the side might yet find that their biggest mistake, in the long run, was putting themselves in a situation which pitched them against one of the greatest folk heroes their country has ever known. And we're not talking about Evita.
----------------------------------------------

Read more!

What Gordon Solie Could Teach Major Scobie

Reading Henry Graham Greene, I get the feeling of watching someone trying to wrestle with God. His main characters bring the admirable intensity of a Dan Gable to the match, but lack the perspective of a Gordon Solie. I am an agnostic when it comes to characterizing the Soliesque perspective as either appreciating the absurd or just a professional weariness, but I know a healthy balance when I see it.

In Greene's perfectly titled novel, The Heart of The Matter - characters seem to do nothing but get to the heart of matters [the third of his four major Catholic novels] - his introspective thoughts are given voice mainly through his protagonist, Chief of Police Major Henry Scobie. Late in the novel, Greene gives us a clue as to why he wrote those type of novels.

She sat there, reading poetry, and she was a thousand miles away from the torment that shook his hand and dried his mouth. She would understand, he thought, if I were in a book, but would I understand her if she were just a character? I don't read that sort of book.

You get the idea that Greene wrote books that he wished others would write, thereby sparing himself the work. Characters who gave voice to moral concerns and reflections. After reading Greene, it's easy to see why he 'didn't read those sort of books.' How could they compare to the thoughts running through his fascinatingly descriptive, rational and decidedly unhappy mind? Just a few of the many interesting thoughts from the novel:

Why ... do I love this place [Haiti] so much? It is because here human nature hasn't had to time to disguise itself? Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you don't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn't the test of man be carried out in fewer years? Couldn't we have committed out first major sin a at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old death-bed?

He had no sense of responsibility towards the beautiful and the graceful and the intelligent. They could find their own way. It was the face for which nobody would go out of his way, the face that would never catch the covert look, the face which would soon be used to rebuffs and indifference that demanded their allegiance. The word 'pity' is used loosely as the word 'love': the terrible promiscuous passion which so few experience.

While rarely does Greene share happy thoughts, they do bring pleasure. The type of pleasure that survives beyond the moment of exposure. So while few if any of Greene's thoughts run the risk of being uttered by anyone looking to sell you something or entertain you beyond the written word, they rang true to this reader.

As a way of savoring the book, I've gathered my favorite Greene thoughts into three categories at the end of the post.

• Killer Sentences
• Masters of the Universe, Beware
• Wrestling with God

The excerpts may not mean as much to those who have yet to read the book, but are still worth reading. You understand? It's what Major Scobie could not, sah.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene - excerpts

Killer Sentences

He lifted the moist hand and kissed the palm: he was bound by the pathos of her unattractiveness.

There was something defenseless, it seemed to Scobie, in his whole attitude: he stood there waiting for people to be friendly or unfriendly - he didn't seem to expect one reaction more than another. He was like a dog.

He listened with the intense interest one feels in a stranger's life, the interest the young mistake for love [ouch].

He had the sense of an animal which had been chased to its hole.

'Oh, is that all?' she asked with immense relief, and irritation at her ignorance moved like hatred unfairly in his brain.

He read somewhere that love had been invented in the eleventh century by troubadors. Why had they not left us with lust?

But if romance is what one lives by, one must never be cured of it. The world has too many spoilt priests of this faith or that: better surely to pretend a belief than wander in that vicious vacuum of cruelty and despair.

Sometimes his eyes strayed to the walls seeking a cockroach, but you couldn't have everything.

Honesty was a double-edged weapon, but intelligence looked after number one [picture a young Dyer making notes here].

It was like having a box of chocolates in a bedroom drawer. Until the box was empty it occupied the mind too much.

'Your work is more important to you than I am,' Helen said, and the banality of the phrase, read in how many bad novels, wrung his heart.

He felt as though he had exiled himself so deeply in the desert that his skin had taken on the colour of the sand.

The soda hissed in the glasses and Yousef drank greedily.

Masters of the Universe, Beware

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war [hear that Heat fans], but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.

They had been corrupted by money, he had been corrupted by sentiment. Sentiment was more dangerous, because you couldn't name its price. A man open to bribes was to be relied upon below a certain figure, but sentiment might uncoil in the heart at a name, a photograph, even a smell remembered.

He had no sense of responsibility towards the beautiful and the graceful and the intelligent. They could find their own way. It was the face for which nobody would go out of his way, the face that would never catch the covert look, the face which would soon be used to rebuffs and indifference that demanded their allegiance. The word 'pity' is used loosely as the word 'love': the terrible promiscuous passion which so few experience.

What an absurd thing it was to expect happiness in a world so full of misery. ... Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil - or else absolute ignorance [insert Ari Gold, 'boom' here].

Wrestling with God

Why ... do I love this place [Haiti] so much? It is because here human nature hasn't had to time to disguise itself? Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you don't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

She was crying. He felt an enormous tiredness, bracing himself to comfort her. 'Darling,' he said, 'I love you.' It was how he always began. Comfort, like the act of sex, developed a routine.

It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn't the test of man be carried out in fewer years? Couldn't we have committed out first major sin a at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old death-bed?

The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

It was a formality, not because he felt himself free from serious sin but because it had never occurred to him that his life was important enough one way or another. He didn't drink, he didn't fornicate, he didn't even lie, but he never regarded this absence of sin as virtue. When he thought about it all, he regarded himself as a man in the ranks, the member of an awkward squad, who had no opportunity to break more serious military rules.

It seemed to him for a moment that God was too accessible. There was no difficulty in approaching Him. Like a popular demagogue He was open to the least of His followers at any hour. Looking up at the cross he thought, He even suffers in public. [All pause and insert a Klymaxx-type rap about how Greene's too gu-gu-good].

She said furiously, 'I don't want your pity.' But it was not a question of whether she wanted it - she had it. Pity smouldered like decay at his heart. He would never rid himself of it. He knew from experience how passion died away and how love went, but pity always stayed. Nothing ever diminished pity. The conditions of life nurtured it. There was a single person in the world who was unpitiable, oneself.

O God, give me death before I give them unhappiness.

The priests told one that it was the unforgivable sin, the final expression of an unrepentant despair, and of course one accepted the Church's teaching. But they taught also that God had sometimes broken his own laws, and was it less possible for him to put out a hand of forgiveness into the suicidal darkness than to have woken himself in the tomb, behind the stone? Christ had not been murdered - you couldn't murder God. Christ had killed himself: he had hung himself on the Cross ...

How often, he thought, lack of faith helps one to see more clearly than faith.

He thought: pious people, I suppose, would call this the devil speaking, but he knew that evil never spoke in these crude answerable terms: this was innocence.

The words of the Mass were like an indictment.

Innocence must die young if it isn't to kill the souls of men.

When he was young, he had thought that love had something to do with understanding, but with age he knew that no human being understood another. Love was the wish to understand, and presently with constant failure the wish died, and love died too perhaps or changed into this painful affection, loyalty and pity.

She sat there, reading poetry, and she was a thousand miles away from the torment that shook his hand and dried his mouth. She would understand, he thought, if I were in a book, but would I understand her if she were just a character? I don't read that sort of book.

This was what human love had done to him - it had robbed him of love for eternity. It was no use pretending, as a young man might, that the price was worth while.

All you have to do now is ring a bell, go into a box, confess ... the repentance is already there, straining at your heart. it's not repentance you lack, just a few simple actions ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Read more!

The Meeting That Made The Decision Possible

DISSOLVE TO: A garden, somewhere outside Schenectady:

PAT O’RILEY
So ... Reinsdorf will move against you first. He'll set up a meeting with someone that you absolutely trust ... guaranteeing your ability to speak freely. And at that meeting, you'll be setup over this whole tampering business [Pat drinks from a glass of wine as Dwyane watches him]. I like to drink wine more than I used to, anyways, I'm drinking more....

DWYANE
It's good for you, Pat.

PAT O’RILEY (after a long pause)
I hope you don't mind the way I ... I keep going over this Reinsdorf business...

DWYANE
No, not at all....

PAT O’RILEY
Oh well, eh ... I want you to arrange to have a man check all the tweets that go in and out of your account because....

DWYANE
I did it already, Pat.

PAT O’RILEY
Oh, that's right ... I forgot.

DWYANE
What's the matter? What's bothering you? [Then, after the Pat doesn't answer.] I'll handle it. I told you I can handle it, I'll handle it.

PAT O’RILEY (as he stands)
I knew that James was going to have to go through all this. And Bosh, well, [he sits besides Dwyane], Bosh was, well.... But I never, ... I never wanted this ... sharing the spotlight for you. I work my whole post-LA & NY life, I don't apologize, to take care of the Arison's. And I've refused ... to be a fool [Beasley pick aside] ... dancing on the string, held by all those -- capologists. I don't apologize ... that's my life ... but I thought that ... that when it was your time ... that ... that you would be the one to hold the strings. Mutiple-MVP's Wade, first owner-player Wade, or ... something ...

DWYANE
A Lebron succeeding in Cleveland ...

PAT O’RILEY
... or a Tiger without the missing windshield ... there just weren't enough bad GM's, Dwyane. Just weren't enough bad GM's ...

DWYANE
We'll get there, Pat, ... we'll get there....

PAT O’RILEY
Uh... Now listen, whoever comes to you with this Reinsdorf meeting ... he's the traitor. Don't forget that.

Read more!

The Circus Clowns Mocking The Dancing Bears

Guest blogger, Wichi, weighs-in.

The sport media reached heretofore unthought of lows on the Lebron decision/announcement. First they fell all over themselves tweeting, commenting, rumoring, etc. Then, like jealous hyena’s forced to watch the carcass being enjoyed by a pride of lions, they screeched in unison about the pomposity of it all, the lack of tact, the hype, all of it. The very creators of the 'over-hype' (hyper-hype?) now are wondering aloud how it all got started.... Give me a break. How is James’ 60 minute special in ANY way less dignified than these journalists obsession with the chance to be 'the man' who got the scoop?

Then the hoops pundits spent most of yesterday aghast that LBJ didn’t choose THEIR pre-ordained landing spot - Chicago. Jon Barry most of all looked like he put $25k in Vegas on Chicago and lost. These experts are mocking the idea of this team being able to co-exist, win, excel, etc. Sour grapes to me. Here’s a question, How’d Team USA do in the 2008 Olympics? Exactly.

Mike Wilbon (whom I respect generally) pontificates that this "new school" athlete doesn’t stay in one place like they used in 'his day' and comments that no matter what, LBJ should have stayed with "his guys" and simply worked and worked until they won. Really? Fine. A couple questions for Wilbon; Mike, who was your first employer in the media world? Why didn’t you simply stay there and made it work? Why did you take the better jobs, the ESPN gig? Why?

One wonders if all 3 of these guys had gone to NYC if the spin wouldn't be, 'this is marvelous! This is great for the NBA, for the Mecca of basketball,' blah blah blah.... I think it would. We are seeing a subtle hoops elitism, in that only 'select' cities/franchises deserve this type of luck, dynasty or star power. Who are those select, pre-ordained children of the gods? Why LA, Boston , NYC, Chicago of course. What arrogance. What pathetic fear is now crawling through the NBA elite and media. There’s a new, very big, strong, and focused sheriff in town, and he ain’t your friend. We have heard this all before. During UM’s long dominance of college football and in 1997 when the media tried to cheapen the Marlins World Series win, e.g. too young a franchise, they bought the best players, it's not a baseball town, etc.

The saddest clown of all, Dan Gilbert. No more pathetic, desperate, whiny sports person in memory. Terribly worded letter. "Cowardly betrayal?" Oh, so if you’d wooed Wade to Cleveland you were OK with THAT betrayal since its not YOUR guy leaving? Oh, OK.... The same team that tried to get Bosh there - and thus not to stay in Toronto - is whimpering like the scorned one-night stand. Have SOME dignity Cleveland and stop acting, well, like Cleveland.

And that is the crux of it, THEY hate US. Miami is hated they way NY used to be; because of our diversity, our rise, our attitude. We saw it first with the UM Hurricanes, and in more subtle ways when the national media reports on events here. They do not think we have paid our dues.

Yes, we here in Miami aren’t classically loyal or true” or even deserving in the truest sense of the word. We have been spoiled, to tell the truth. The Marlins win a WS in their 5th year; Dolphins win a Super bowl in their 7th year; Panthers are in a Stanley freaking Cup Final after 3 years; the Hurricanes rule college football for an 18-year span (1984 -2002); We got another World Series win, another SB win, and an NBA title.

Wanna know our secret? The unspoken deal we make with our teams? We aren’t to be trifled with. We are not blindly loyal. We don’t appreciate half-assed efforts (hear that Mr. Loria?). We have a healthy balance to our sports. We don’t spend money supporting bad or average teams. Pat Riley gets it. Win or be forgotten is the mantra here. Sorry if that doesn’t meet the standards of a Cleveland / Cubs / Bills fan waiting in the cold to see a crappy team. I get it. WE get it. You’re 'tougher' than us in that sense. OK, so we’re soft, immature front-runners.

But we’re smarter.

And better.

And you simply don’t like it.

Read more!

Miami Heat and Ron Rothstein

This won't feel right unless Miami Senior High Hall of Famer Udonis Haslem stays with the Heat. But that aside, there are a few things we can be certain of today.

1. It's a mistake to compare what the Heat have done in the NBA salary cap environment to what MLB teams [Yankees and Red Sox] do when they routinely outspend competitors. Pat Riley and the Miami Heat organization's accomplishment was not clearing cap space, heck even the Knicks can do that. Their achievement involved salesmanship and professional credibility. That is much different than adding a zero to contract offers.
2. This generation of Cleveland sports fans will produce better writers than this generation of Miami sport fans. Sports-type suffering will do that.
3. Dan Gilbert is the right man to lead a hostile takeover of under performing and inefficient botánicas under the holding company, Changó's Rack. [Overheard at Changó board meetings, "do we or do we not stand behind our curses people?"]
4. This Miami Heat team will be gearing up for their 2nd year in the playoffs as the new Miami Marlins stadium opens in my Little Havana neighborhood in April 2012. Wow.
5. There may be other communities as deserving as the City of Miami for this sports-related good fortune, but none more. A little reminder of where things stood back in early 1989. This from the Sports Illustrated vault:

Life at the bottom of the Midwest Division was especially trying last week for Ron Rothstein, coach of the 4-32 Heat. After riots in Miami's Overtown section caused the postponement of the Heat's game with the Suns, Rothstein suffered a blowout just a few blocks from the disturbances. Police helped Rothstein change the tire, but the next night nobody could help Miami stop the Bulls' Michael Jordan, who flattened Rothstein's team, scoring 34 points and leading Chicago to a 112-108 victory.

My brother Fernando and I rarely missed a minute -- my cousin Ramiro once caused me to miss a first quarter [it cost us the game, check it out] against Milwaukee back in 1993, but I'm almost over it now -- let alone a game during the first six years of the Heat. Current Heat assistant, Ron Rothstein, was the coach in the beginning and we remain big fans of his. I would describe Rothstein as old school, except that term seems too hip for him. Again, like Udonis, this wouldn't feel right if he wasn't part of the Heat's future. From the sidelines, here are lineups Rothstein has and could ... witness [sorry my bad].


How can this be any better for Miami Heat fans?

The New York Knicks free agency period is being described as an "utter disaster." Bill Simmons - of whom I am a fan, but who is clearly in despair over the Heat's ascendancy - wrote [before the Lebron decision] about that franchise:

I ruled out the Knicks last week after details trickled out about LeBron's comical New York meeting, which sounded like a "Saturday Night Live" sketch because of Donnie Walsh being in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace (he just had neck surgery), and James Dolan being James Dolan. Now the Knicks are gaining momentum thanks to the "He's coming!" buzz that drove MSG's stock price up 6.5 percent Wednesday. Where did this buzz come from? As far as I can tell, nowhere. But there's buzzing. You have to believe me. My BlackBerry practically blew up yesterday with e-mails from sports-industry friends with "KNICKS???" in the subject heading.

If he spurns them, then suddenly we're looking at the most disastrous decade in the history of New York sports -- first the Layden Era, then the Isiah Era, then Walsh spending two years gutting the team so he could spend $100 million on a guy with a bad knee and a bad eye who hasn't played defense in six years. Do you realize the Knicks will have given away top-10 lottery picks in 2004, '06, '07, '09, '10 and, potentially, '11 and '12 without making the playoffs or landing one superstar? How is that even possible?

(Important note: The fact that David Stern stuck Rod Thorn in New Jersey, Walsh in New York, David Kahn in Minnesota and Stu Jackson in Vancouver has to be added to his Wikipedia page. Like, right now. He's the Pied Piper for putrid GMs.)

Read more!

Hey Hey LBJHow Many Franchises Did You Kill Today

Hey, how many anti-Vietnam war chants can I realistically invoke on this blog.

Read more!

Maradona and Schadenfreude

Does anyone know how to contact the equivalent of the DEA in South Africa? I got one hell of a tip for them tonight.

Argentina was slaughtered in their World Cup quarterfinal match on Saturday. They surrendered -- the French are thrilled this sentence can now be written to include another country -- to the Germans, 4-0. A quick review of World Cup championship matches [including 3rd place vs 4th place finishers] with a four goal differential since 1930, yielded only one other loss of that magnitude. However, that loss by Bulgaria came at the hands of Sweden in 1994, a team seen as much superior. While this match was only a quarterfinal, both teams were considered legitimate contenders to win the Cup. If anything, Argentina's team featured more established talent - including the world's top player in Lionel Messi - while Germany's talent was considered too young before the tournament began.

So the Argentine team cracked in a historic manner on Saturday. Speaking of crack, Argentina is coached by Diego Maradona, an anti-American druggie whose urgent need for the limelight resembles a dog who continues to lick the part of the sofa where a sugary substance once resided. The dog must know it's gone, but he acts determined to bring it back, even if it means that his tongue is sacrificed in the process. In this case, Argentina's World Cup chances were the item being sacrificed so that Maradona could lick the spotlight one more time before he relapses.

This from an Argentinian fan blog before the game:

The time has come to discuss about a quarter final that is very special to all of us. The past is still very fresh and painful, and us, argentinos expect nothing else than a victory from our magnificent players.

In order to beat Germany, the coaching staff will have to calm down (Maradona), analyze and think about some important issues.

Which system to use? In my previous thread opening, I’ve mentioned some important tactical problems related to the 4-3-1-2. A system that we all obviously know very well, so it’s easy to understand what isn’t working. Against Mexico, Corea and Greece, we all noticed that:

- Germany perfectly know how to beat 4-3-1-2. They perfectly know that once they pass the Tevez-Messi-Higuain line, it won’t come back, and that the best way to beat us is to attack from the wings and use the space left on purpose by our 7-men-midfield to cross and find Klose. This is the tactical reason why we conceded one of the most hurting gol ever (2006).

Calm down? Mr Lopez [the blogger], do you understand what you are asking? A medical perspective:

"Typically, patients with cocaine overdoses in the emergency room are treated with nitroglycerin, sedatives such as Valium, and some blood-pressure medications such as calcium channel blockers and some beta blockers," Dr. Vongpatanasin said. "However, the standard treatments don’t alleviate all of the adverse effects of cocaine on the heart, blood pressure and central nervous system."

Argentina put it's World Cup hopes on Humpty Dumpty. Watch Castro and Chavez try and put him back together again.

Sensing the prospects of a collapse, I wanted to enjoy it among other World Cup fans so my day started at Fritz & Franz Bierhaus in Coral Gables. Great atmosphere for the match, but not nearly enough space for the large crowd. Thankfully, Germany scored very early on and I was surprised at how quiet the Argentina fans got for the rest of the half. I feel for the Germany fans. They seemingly root with a handicap, they mustn't be too angry or organized in their cheering.

Spreading my enjoyment, I saw the 2nd half at the Italian Sports Grill in the Fountainbleau area. I figured it was my best chance for a pro-Germany crowd. No crowds there, which was just as well. I was able to thoroughly enjoy the beating being administered to Maradona's club - 'enjoy' entails shouting insults every time the bearded midget appeared onscreen - with impunity.

Again, South African DEA, call me [making hand motion while extending thumb and little finger, curling the base and middle knuckles of the other 3 fingers].

Read more!

When Irish Eyes Are Wailing

Maybe it was the whole Eamon de Valera thing. So while I've come late to the game, I feel as though I'm getting my Irish on lately, except for the whole fighting, drinking and gregariousness thing. If Mangan's good enough for James Joyce and Graham Greene, who am I to rain on their bipolar parade. Please avoid reading the poem while alone or sober.

The Nameless One by James Clarence Mangan - 1803-1849

ROLL forth, my song, like the rushing river,
That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul of thee!

Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
That once there was one whose veins ran lightning
No eye beheld.

Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,
How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
No star of all heaven sends to light our
Path to the tomb.

Roll on, my song, and to after ages
Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages,
The way to live.

And tell how trampled, derided, hated,
And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
He fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song.

--With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
Flow'd like a rill in the morning beam,
Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid--
A mountain stream.

Tell how this Nameless, condemn'd for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death.

Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
Betray'd in friendship, befool'd in love,
With spirit shipwreck'd, and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove;

Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others
(And some whose hands should have wrought for him,
If children live not for sires and mothers),
His mind grew dim;

And he fell far through that pit abysmal,
The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,
And pawn'd his soul for the devil's dismal
Stock of returns.

But yet redeem'd it in days of darkness,
And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,
Stood on his path.

And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
That no ray lights.

And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and hoary
At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
He lives, enduring what future story
Will never know.

Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell!
He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,
Here and in hell.

Those strike me as the words of a man who understands his very Irish Catholic faith. I'm guessing this poem won't make it onto a Joel Osteen PowerPoint presentation anytime soon.

Read more!

Cuba: Those Who Speak Outand the Catholic Cardinal Who Won't

Every now and then, someone in the political arena make a point so seemingly simple and effective, you wonder how the other side can rebut it. I thought that the WSJ columnist, Mary Anastasia O'Grady, made one in addressing the issue of whether to lift the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba. She wrote:

With so much risk involved, any policy change will depend heavily on being able to trust the motives of U.S. leaders. Recall that it was Nixon who went to China. That's why efforts to change policy that are being led by the current crop of Democrats make so many Americans uneasy. After all, if Mr. Peterson wants to boost commerce why not push for passage of the Colombia free trade agreement? Why is he so interested in doing business with a dictator?

The congressman she was referring to, Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, opposes the Colombia free trade agreement.

O'Grady also brings into question the actions of the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega:

... Several sources reported to me that the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega, was on a secretive trip to Washington last week to lobby for an end to the travel ban. ... Other sources said that the cardinal reached out to members of Congress....

... if Cardinal Ortega has decided to intervene on behalf of the regime's needs, it would not be surprising. He has long been viewed by human-rights advocates—such as former political prisoner Armando Valladares, a practicing Catholic—as more a tool of the regime than a champion of the oppressed. A kinder assessment of the cardinal suggests that he's trying to boost the Church's power on the island. In either case, acting as an emissary to Washington right now would make sense.

Many people I know and read, who pay much closer attention to Cuban politics, have been similarly critical of Cardinal Ortega for a while now. Having the example of John Paul II's time as a bishop and cardinal in Communist Poland, I've always thought that since we really don't know what's going on behind the scenes, I should extend someone like Ortega the benefit of the doubt.

No more. If the Church in Cuba had been biding its time for the right opportunity to protest openly, it's hard to believe people of good faith would not have stepped forward in the past few months. So while my faith guides the motivation to extend the benefit of the doubt, it also also teaches me that priests are human too. Sometimes appearances are not deceiving. So aside from Cuba's many other misfortunes, having Catholic leadership which is more whiskey-type priest than a Wojtyła-type priest, is yet another.

The O'Grady article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

----------------------------------------------------
Why Lift the Travel Ban to Cuba Now?
Waves of Canadian, European and Latin American visitors haven't changed a thing. - by MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY - JUNE 28, 2010

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Honduran Supreme Court's decision to order the arrest of Manuel Zelaya, a power-hungry Hugo Chávez acolyte who tried to remain president for life.

It's something to celebrate: Thanks to the bravery of the court and the Congress, which voted to remove him from office, democracy was saved.

Yet a nagging question remains: Why were the Obama administration and key congressional Democrats obsessed, for seven months, with trying to force Honduras to take Mr. Zelaya back? Why did the U.S. pull visas, deny aid, and lead an international campaign to isolate the tiny Central American democracy? To paraphrase many Americans who wrote to me during the stand-off: "Whose side are these guys on anyway?"

Such doubts about the motivations of the party in power in Washington will be hard to ignore this week as the Democrats try to put U.S. Cuba policy back on the legislative agenda. Specifically, Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson will try to pass a bill in the House Agriculture Committee that would lift the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba without any human-rights concession from Castro.

The end of the Cuba travel ban would mean a bonanza in tourism to the island at a time when Fidel and Raúl are in desperate need of new revenue. But the push to lift the ban has anti-Castro supporters too. They argue that it is isolation that preserves the dictatorship and that a barrage of gringo tourists would weaken the dictatorship.

Proponents of the ban point out that a wave of European, Canadian and Latin American visitors since the mid-1990s hasn't changed a thing. They worry that American sun-seekers will only prop up a dictatorship that is most famous for slave labor, jailing dissidents and sowing revolution in the hemisphere.

With so much risk involved, any policy change will depend heavily on being able to trust the motives of U.S. leaders. Recall that it was Nixon who went to China. That's why efforts to change policy that are being led by the current crop of Democrats make so many Americans uneasy. After all, if Mr. Peterson wants to boost commerce why not push for passage of the Colombia free trade agreement? Why is he so interested in doing business with a dictator?

The dictatorship is hard up for hard currency. The regime now relies heavily on such measures as sending Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for marked-down oil. But according to a recent Associated Press story, "Cuba's foreign trade plunged by more than a third in 2009," perhaps because Caracas, running out of money itself, is no longer a reliable sugar daddy. A sharp drop in nickel prices hasn't helped, and neither did three hurricanes in 2008, which devastated housing.

Cuba owes sovereign lenders billions of dollars, according to the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, and according to a June 23 Reuters report, it is so cash-strapped that it had "froze[n] up to $1 billion in the accounts of 600 foreign suppliers by the start of 2009."

Now there is a serious food shortage. This month the independent media in Cuba reported that a scarcity of rice had the government so worried about civil unrest that it had to send police to accompany deliveries to shops.

This has the regime scrambling. Several sources reported to me that the Roman Catholic cardinal from Havana, Jaime Ortega, was on a secretive trip to Washington last week to lobby for an end to the travel ban. One of his meetings was rumored to be with the State Department's assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Valenzuela. The State Department declined to tell me if this was true or not.

Other sources said that the cardinal reached out to members of Congress, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and his staffer Peter Quilter. I queried Mr. Berman's office but got no reply. Regular readers of this column know Mr. Quilter's politics. As I reported in April, he traveled with Sen. John Kerry's staffer Fulton Armstrong to Tegucigalpa to warn Hondurans who backed the removal of Mr. Zelaya that they are still in the doghouse.

While Castro relies on the embargo to explain Cuban poverty, he does, it seems, badly need gringo tourism, which he could control. And if Cardinal Ortega has decided to intervene on behalf of the regime's needs, it would not be surprising. He has long been viewed by human-rights advocates—such as former political prisoner Armando Valladares, a practicing Catholic—as more a tool of the regime than a champion of the oppressed. A kinder assessment of the cardinal suggests that he's trying to boost the Church's power on the island. In either case, acting as an emissary to Washington right now would make sense.

But for those interested in Cuban freedom it is bizarre. For the first time in history the Castros are cornered. Yet rather then negotiate from a position of strength, Democrats seem to want to give relief to the dictatorship.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A19
----------------------------------------------

Read more!

Northern Ireland's Example For Cuba

Opening lyrics to the U2 song, Sunday Bloody Sunday:

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
'Cause tonight we can be as one, tonight

Those lyrics are about an incident in Northern Ireland where British troops shot and killed Catholic civil rights marchers in 1972. There was some closure to that incident recently when an inquiry [Bloody Sunday] begun in 1998 by the British government culminated in a statement of apology from British prime minister David Cameron in the House of Commons on June 15th 2010. The reaction from U2 lead singer, Bono, in a New York Times Op-ed:

Thirty-eight years did not disappear in an 11-minute speech — how could they, no matter how eloquent or heartfelt the words? But they changed and morphed, as did David Cameron, who suddenly looked like the leader he believed he would be. From prime minister to statesman.

Joy was the mood in the crowd. A group of women sang “We Shall Overcome.” There was a surprising absence of spleen — this was a community that had been through more than most anyone could understand, showing a restraint no one could imagine. This was a dignified joy, with some well-rehearsed theatrics to underscore the moment.
...
Figures I had learned to loathe as a self-righteous student of nonviolence in the ’70s and ’80s behaved with a grace that left me embarrassed over my vitriol. For a moment, the other life that Martin McGuinness could have had seemed to appear in his face: a commander of the Irish Republican Army that day in 1972, he looked last week like the fly fisherman he is, not the gunman he became ... a school teacher, not a terrorist ... a first-class deputy first minister.

The best way I can summarize what happened, for those of us who don't know much about the history there, is to compare it to an event in US history. Suppose the US Marshals and federal law enforcement sent to ensure that James Meredith could attend the University of Mississippi had ended up attacking civil rights workers. This from Bloody Sunday Inquiry Report:

2.1 Londonderry in January 1972 was a troubled city with a divided society, in a troubled and divided country. Throughout much of Northern Ireland there were deep and seemingly irreconcilable divisions between nationalists (predominantly Roman Catholic and a majority in the city) and unionists (generally Protestant and a majority in Northern Ireland as a whole). In general terms the former wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and unite with the rest of Ireland, while the latter wanted it to remain part of the United Kingdom.

2.2 This sectarian divide, as it was called, had existed for a long time. Among other things, it had led in the years preceding Bloody Sunday to many violent clashes between the two communities and with the police, then the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). The police had become regarded by many in the nationalist community not as impartial keepers of the peace and upholders of the law, but rather as agents of the unionist Northern Ireland Government, employed in their view to keep the nationalist community subjugated, often by the use of unjustifiable and brutal force.

2.3 On 14th August 1969, after there had been particularly violent clashes between civilians and the police in Londonderry, the authorities brought into the city units of the British Army as an aid to the civil power, in other words to restore law and order. The British Army was in the city in this role on Bloody Sunday.

Now it wouldn't take much imagination for those of us with a Cuban background to identify with the U2 lyrics above. After taking the time to learn about 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland with more of a historical perspective -- provided mainly by Norman Davies amazing book on Europe -- I wouldn't attempt to make that comparison. Cuba is fortunate compare with Northern Ireland. Why? Cuba's problem is communism, a terror-based totalitarian form of government with an impressive string of failures to its credit. Norman Davies on the mother of all Commie collapses:

The Soviet Union was not, like ancient Rome, invaded by barbarians or, like the Polish Commonwealth, partitioned by rapacious neighbours, or, like the Habsberg Empire, overwhelmed by the strains of a great war. It was not, like the Nazi Reich, defeated in a fight to the death. It died because it had to, because the grotesque organs of its internal structure were incapable of providing the essentials of life. In a nuclear age, it could not, like its tsarist predecessor, solve its internal problems by expansion. Nor could it suck more benefit from the nations whom it had captured. It could not tolerate partnership with China which once promised a global future for communism; it could not stand the oxygen of reform; so it imploded. It was struck down by the political equivalent of a coronary, more massive than anything history affords.

The generation who advocated and in whose interests it remains to perpetuate communism in Cuba are about to die off. The Raul Castro era represents bypass surgery. Thankfully -- in keeping with the analogy -- strokes, heart attacks, graft failures, and serious bleeding are likely to follow. So Cuba will likely get a chance to hit a reset button in the not so distant future, while Northern Ireland can only dream of that type of opportunity. Their struggles run much deeper.

I look forward to the day when I will be 'embarrassed over my vitriol towards those I've learned to loathe.' To quote another U2 lyric, "a change of heart comes slow." For now, being aware that my faith asks for much more than that, is where I'm at. Learning about the strife which affects their homeland, adds to my appreciation and understanding of the people behind U2. It also means that I now know where I want to see them in concert next. The day they play in Cuba, the day they play Bloody Sunday in Cuba, their thoughts will likely run to Londonderry and 'The Troubles,' I know mine will.

In case there are others whose knowledge of the Northern Ireland issue resembles mine, I've outlined what I learned about the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland from the Davies book at the end of the post. Please click on the "read more" below to see the outline.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

History of Ireland excerpted from the Norman Davies book on Europe:

• 432 - Ireland was evangelized by St Patrick, a Roman citizen from western Britain and disciple of St Germanus. At Tara in Meath he confronted the High King, Laoghaire, kindled the paschal fire on the hill of Slane [in case you too think you've heard of Slane before, you have, so prepare to be elevated -- by the way if you think Edge is wearing a Mickey Mantle shirt, you're an ol' piece of ... -- JC] and silenced the Druids.
• 563 - Irish missions, a counter-measure to combat the inroads of barbarians, began with the arrival of St Columba on Iona. Irish monks followed practices which were out of step with Rome. Major problems were to arise in reconciling Celtic and Latin traditions.
• Tenth century - While the English battled the Danes, the rest of the British Isles witnessed a long, complex struggle between Vikings and Celts. Irish end up ruling the whole of Ireland for 150 years.
• 1534 - Henry VIII declared himself 'King Of Ireland.'
• 1598 -The Kingdom of England was targeted for reconversion in a campaign that spawned the Forty Catholic martyrs led by St Edmund Campion. Ireland was confirmed in Catholicism, especially after the brutal Elizabethan expedition.
• 1602 - Cormack McCarthy, Lord of Blarney in County Cork repeatedly delayed the surrender of his castle to the English through an endless series of parleys, queries, and time-wasting speeches. With McCarthy's act of defiance, 'Blarney' passed into common parlance as a synonym for the 'gift of gab.'
• 1611 - Planting of a Scottish Presbyterian colony in Ulster.
• 1641 - A Scots army arrived in Ireland to protect their Protestant co-religionists; multi-sided warfare proceeded unchecked during the 'English Civil War.'
• 1649-51 - Ireland brutally conquered and annexed by Cromwell.
• 1691 - Protestant supremacy was bolstered within the British Isles by draconian laws which denied Catholics the right to office, property, education, and intermarriage.
• 1707 - Ireland was excluded from the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland. The two were previously separate states but with the same monarch. That created the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain.' While Ireland retained its own Parliament, it was still subject to the king's ministers in London.

Davies details the effect that exclusion had on Ireland:

Unlike Scotland, Ireland was not allowed to benefit from free trade with England. Unlike Wales, it did not experience any any sort of national or cultural revival. With the sole exception of Protestant Ulster, where Huguenot refugees started the prosperous linen industry, it did not participate directly in Britian's industrial revolution. A rising population made rural distress a fact of life. The famines of 1726-9 and 1739-41 foreshadowed the disaster of the 1840s.

• 1761 - Ferocious 'Whiteboy' gangs made their appearance in the countryside.
• 1798 - Reform movement led by Henry Flood and Henry Grattan failed.
• 1801 - Ireland forcibly incorporated into the United Kingdom through the second Act of Union. Promised Catholic emancipations are postponed for thirty years.
• 1829 - The Catholic Association of Daniel O'Connell achieved religious toleration, e.g. allowed to buy land.
• 1845 through 1849 - Irish potato famine caused one million deaths and drove another million to emigrate. Reduced population of the island of 8.2 million by 25%. Sufferings of the Famine included witnessing corpses in the field and children dying in the workhouse, while grain continued to be exported to England under guard.
• 1858 - Irish Republican Brotherhood formed.
• 1879 - Land League formed to protect rebellious tenants from government -backed landlords. Absentee landlords had typically used the military to enforce evictions. The military customarily razed or 'tumbled' the houses of defaulters.
• 1880 through 1912 - Irish Home Rule was supported by Gladstones ruling Liberal Party at various stages, but three different efforts were blocked in the House of Commons.
• 1890s - Cultural awakening of the Irish was evidenced by the founding of the Irish Literary Theatre, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Gaelic League.
• 1905 - Sinn Fein formed.
• 1914 - Onset of World War I pushes back determination on Irish Home Rule. Millions of Irish serve in the British army.
• 1920 - Ulster turned into autonomous province of the UK.
• 1922 - Irish Free State formed after Irish defeat British paramilitary group, the 'Black and Tans.' The dominant personality, and many times Premier, Eamon de Valera, was a half-Cuban Catholic born of an Irish mother in New York City [hey Grady, how do ya like dem apples].
• 1937 - The Free State, a national republic, declared itself the Republic of Eire.
• 1949 - Ireland severed all ties with Great Britain. The Irish Constitution treated the counties of British Ulster as an integral part of the Republic. But the IRA was regarded as an illegal organization on both sides of the border.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Read more!

What Passes For Locust In Miami

What if the presence of so many obnoxious New Yorkers [Northeasterners really] in our community is not just the result of an aging population seeking warmer climates? For wisdom, we turn to the Word, Exodus 10:13-15

And the locust went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.

For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

Thursday morning I saw pictures in the local papers of the next non-interim manager of the Florida Marlins. The clothing he was wearing openly, complete with a cap, was the costume of a professional New York baseball team. The stinking Mets. I felt physically ill.

Our future Marlins manager decked out in the garb of the gonads-less Mets! The choking-dog of a franchise that the Fredi Gonzalez led Marlins had the pleasure of knocking out of playoff contention in two consecutive seasons. In domestic abuse terms, those seasons, the glorious years of 2007 and 2008, ended with the Marlins grasping the Mets by the loose skin at the back of their necks and dragging them in a casually destructive manner through their home and tossing them dismissively out their own front door as though they were playing horseshoes in a zero-gravity environment [thankfully, they landed on jagged rocks infected with MRSA].

There are few pleasures in sports which can match watching a truly hated opponent suffer gut-wrenching loses. The agony on the face of Met fans at the final game in Shea stadium is something that I still draw strength from in difficult times. The thought that Bret Farve's last pass for three consecutive seasons have been throws which he either reacted stupidly or cowardly and cost his teams playoff games or a chance to make the playoffs, still brings a tear now and then.

But still, ... a future Marlins manager pictured while covered in feces? Physical illness soon led to depression. What if the presence of so many Northeasterners in Miami represents some type of Biblical punishment? What if the sins of Henry Flagler and Julia Tuttle are now having sporting repercussions? Parcells [Jersey], Riley [Schenectady], Loria & Samson [Joffrey Ballet]; to paraphrase Philip Bosco in The Pope of Greenwich Village [we do irony too here at 2TG], 'we're surrounded!' Depression deepens.

What if the wretched Northeasterners represent only half of the swarm of locusts? Wait a minute, what if ... those of us ... from parts ... south of Miami, represent the other half of the swarm cursing Miami? I scream out with a Roddy McDowall Twilight Zone like anguish, 'I am not a locust!,' even as I double-check limbs.

Read more!

Dishonest Florida Marlins Management

Jeffrey Loria makes Nick Saban look like an amateur. See Saban -- who has an uncanny resemblance to a screeching, squealing, rapacious swamp sow when his lies are played on videotape -- lied when cornered [see Tim Graham's post]. Loria lies as if the Marlins revenue sharing monies were dependent on the absurdity of his public comments.

Part of the fun of being an owner should be that you don't have to lie so blatantly about why you want to change your manager. But Loria approaches telling the truth as a kind of beguiling vice, cautious that it might be habit forming. Forbes has well documented his lies about the financial performance of the Florida Marlins, which I have converted into basic financial statements. But those lies are obvious. It's what MLB and their owners do, especially those on the receiving end of revenue sharing monies.

Telling such obvious lies about why you want to replace your respected Cuban-born manager prior to relocating your franchise into a predominantly Cuban-American community is different. It's more revealing. Their intentions have been public since last October.

The Marlins project, look and play like a .500 team. They are 2 games under .500 seventy games into the 2010 season. Loria on why he fired Fredi Gonzalez in the Sun-Sentinel:

"It is never easy to make a change in managers. Fredi has been with our club for four years. We have become close, and I am extremely fond of Fredi. I, along with all our fans, am grateful for Fredi's contributions. At the same time, we can't let personal feelings get in the way of taking steps that we believe are necessary to improve our ballclub.

"Decisions on individual personnel cannot supersede our overall goal, which is to win. We believe we can do better and be better. We owe it to our fans to put this team in the best possible position to win. Everyone knows how I feel about winning. That's the reason we're making this change. We still have a very long season in front of us, and plenty of time to turn things around. Everyone, our fans, our team, our organization, and myself wants us to win. That continues to be, and will always be, the goal."

No one believes that is the truth. Just like no one believes that the reason Forbes considers the Marlins so profitable is because, "Forbes assumes that player expenses are the Marlins only expenses," my favorite example of David Samson's efforts at dissembling.

All this for a 60 year old New York Mets managerial retread? Bobby Valentine last managed the Mets to a 5th place finish in 2002. I guess Don Zimmer isn't available. No, I know, he's just not New York enough for South Florida. How about we think outside the box -- outside the Boroughs? -- for once. Why limit our managerial retreads to MLB? Can't we add Bill Fitch and Mike Fratelo to the interview process?

Montreal Expo fans reading about Loria's latest move must feel like SEC investigators trying to warn people about Bernie Madoff way back in 2007. Jeffrey Loria, to paraphrase Miguel Angel (Cordero) Gonzalez, has much cash [for Yale, not middle relievers], but little class.

Read more!

Paul McCartney: What's Fair To Say?

Paul McCartney turns 68 today, June 18th. Recently, he took a kinda of girly swipe [is he capable of any other?] at Bush 43. Republicans trying to score political points, asked him to apologize. McCartney, thrilled to be in the news, has refused, stating that he meant it as a joke.

I say forget the apologies route. In keeping with McCartney's example, humor could be a more effective response. My top reasons that former President George W. Bush should not be bothered by McCartney's jab are:

• McCartney's a 68 year-old male who colors his hair.
• McCartney's a 68 year-old male who colors his eyebrows.
• McCartney had plastic surgery on his face when he was 65 years-old.
• McCartney had his plastic surgery shortly before his open heart surgery. Shouldn't the order of those two have been reversed?
• Rumor Mills have it that since 2002, McCartney has been obsessed with getting a leg up on bush.

Others?

Read more!

World Cup Diary: USA v England

My World Cup diary on the game between the USA and England.

0:00 - Game begins. Normally when you say a game has a tremendous buzz, that's a good thing. Not here. Game already marred by what sounds like an attack of bees in the broadcast booth. I learn that the buzz is coming from South Africans using 'vuvuelas' [plastic horns]. Apparently it is a form of protest. They want all the tourists out of the stadium and spending money among the locals.

0:30 - While clock is clearly moving, we may be in some sort of warm-up period. Action very low-key.

1:15 - ABC announcer just assured us viewers that the action is "not low-key" despite appearances.

1:47 - OK, this has to be a warm-up. Ball went out of bounds at 1:27 and they could not find another ball to use until 1:47. The USA player waiting to in-bounds, Carlos Bocanegra, was not even bothered, i.e. 'hey, this is soccer, so what if the clock is running, nothing is really gonna happen when we do get the ball anyways.' The NBA could have fit 4 commercials, 5 possessions and 6 free throws into those 20 seconds.

3:47 - England's captain, Steven Gerrard, scores around 3:47. His slide ends around 4:47. Really inappropriate use of broken glass enters my sub-conscious. ABC commentators debate whether the US team still has a chance.

9:10 - USA goalie, Tim Howard, has apparently been added to the team right before the game. He seems shocked how bad his defense is and he is determined to alert soccer fans the world over that they, not he, are to blame for whatever English scoring may occur during today's game. I think I spot a Kobe Bryant tattoo on his left arm.

11:47 - Buzzing continues unabated.

18:37 - USA misses on scoring opportunity. A Landon Donovan pass near the goal just missed being a header by Jozy Altidore.

22:40 - In an ominous sign, announcer describes history of 10 year old stadium the game is being played in. Buzzing continues unabated.

25:30 - USA gets free kick off foul and yellow card on James Milner. Altidore just misses header. Altidore, is very tall [6'5"] and features a Milwaukee Buck-era Abdul-Jabbar beard.

28:25 - England just misses on another scoring opportunity. The USA goalie Howard has apparently had enough. He pulls the by now classic soccer player 'I'm going to exaggerate how hurt I really am although you can't even tell in the replay how it happened' stunt. His agent, disguised as a trainer, comes out to urge him to remain in the game. When the 'trainer' returns to the sideline, he gives the USA Coach the universal Jerry Maguire to Generic GM 'you owe me' glance. Replays show that Howard was actually spiked in the chest on the play. Everyone is shocked.

38:35 - USA ties game 1-1 on a Clint Dempsey kick. England's goalie, Robert Greene, allows a goal which would have gotten him pulled even from a weekend co-ed corporate game played between HR and Accounting which features a condensed field and cones. Good time to note that England has a coach names Fabio who wears the type of glasses featured by a young Michael Caine.

38:36 - Howard tweets that "he is embarrassed to be on the same field with his defense and the other team's goalie."

42:14 - England's Emile Heskey takes fake injury to another level as he interrupts the game for a couple of minutes to allow everyone to debate whether the Dempsy goal was the worst defended goal in World Cup history. Fans urge Heskey to rise since there was an immediate consensus brokered by Greene's parents. Man, there must be some kind of feud between Heskey and Greene.

45:01 - 2nd half begins, buzzing continues unabated.

48:10 - England just misses around the goal. Howard punches teammate.

50:55 - On a breakaway, Heskey kicks the ball right into Howards midsection as a way of highlighting Greene's earlier failure. The thing between Heskey and Greene must involve the wives.

59:58 - England's Gerrard is yellow carded on a foul on Dempsey. In a breach of protocol, Dempsey gets up after an embarrassingly brief ground-writhing routine and seems to be laughing.

64:00 - Altidore just misses scoring on a rush which resulted in the ball being deflected off the left goal post. Greene gets partial redemption. Heskey seems upset.

65:05 - Game stopped because England's Glen Johnson was bleeding from the lip. Johnson was offered an opportunity to fall to the ground, but declined.

71:15 - Buzzing continues unabated.

74:30 - Another point blank save by Howard. His Trainer/Agent is seen taunting Coach Bradley.

75:33 - In an embarrassing example of the dangers of live TV, a cut-away to scenes outside the stadium revealed the Argentinian coach, Diego Maradona, either selling or purchasing a crack pipe in the background of one shot. [Apparently, as a way of combating aggressive police tactics, drug lords have turned to the use of midgets in public drug transactions since there is a dearth of little persons in law enforcement, especially under-cover.] On the positive side, it afforded his son, Diego Sinagra, a rare opportunity to see his father.

80's - Nothing good every happened in the 80's.

91:15 - Buzzing continues unabated despite everyone -- players, crowd and announcers -- seeming very tired. I begin to wonder if there is an actual crowd or one of those fake crowd backgrounds featured in Droopy Dog cartoons involving sporting events. An English fan yawning answers my question.

93:35 - Viewer mercy rule invoked and game ended in a 1-1 tie. Apparently, everyone wanted to get an early start in ruining the rest of Robert Greene's life.

Read more!

Wenski Has Much Currency On Immigration

In the first chapter of his book, Money Mischief, Milton Friedman relates an example of how some islands in Micronesia used round stones, anywhere from one foot to twelve feet in diameter, to represent currency. [It is unknown whether this is where the phrase, 'he's got stones' originated.]

In one case, the German Government, on purchasing the islands, attempted to get the island chiefs to repair the roads. The locals resisted. The Germans levied a fine which was extracted by marking a number of the most valuable stones with a black cross. The act impoverished the chiefs and forced them to fix up the roads. The fine was recognized as paid when the officials washed the black mark from the stones. Wealth had been temporarily taken and then restored by affecting their currency.

The point of the story is that currency can take on many different forms. Currency is merely a tangible representation of wealth. Wealth must be created by the land or labor of society. If governments create currency unrelated to the actual wealth being created in the society, then we get what we have today; TARP, Ireland, Greece, Spain, and ....

Take a look at the picture above. The love and respect shown Archbishop Thomas Wenski represents currency in the immigration debate. In the parlance of the day, the dude in the black cape is seriously loaded. He was not given that currency, he earned it. This from the Miami Herald's article about his return to Notre Dame d'Haiti:

As he entered the Little Haiti Catholic church he founded 29 years ago, a crowd of thousands, some with tears of joy, quickly gave the Most Rev. Thomas Wenski the treatment of a rock star on Sunday. Waving their hands in the air, they snapped photos, held out tape recorders and clutched portraits of him.

``Byenvini Lakay Ou,'' they said, ``Welcome back home.''

For the estimated 2,500 Haitian Catholics from across South Florida who came to Notre Dame d'Haiti -- a crowd typically reserved for Christmas or Easter -- the event was not to be missed. The beloved Polish-American priest, one who had guided the region's Haitian-American community since its early days, had returned, this time as the new archbishop of Miami.

``Many of us are who we are because of you,'' the current pastor, the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, told a teary Wenski, who celebrated Mass in perfect Creole for more than two hours in the standing-room-only church.

On Sunday, after celebrating two English Masses and a Spanish Mass days before, Wenski proudly slipped back into the role he has long played: a champion of Haitian Catholics, who represent a majority of the island nation's vibrant community in South Florida. ``Notre Dame, this church here, it represents the Haitian community,'' Wenski said to parishioners, many who skipped work and some who traveled from as far as West Palm Beach to meet the pastor they still affectionately call Pè, or Father.

An overflow crowd jammed the church's courtyard and hallways and packed hundreds of outdoor chairs as a closed-circuit TV system broadcasted the 59-year-old's remarks. It was his first stop at Notre Dame since he was tapped to lead the region's 800,000 Catholics in late April.

The celebration, full of upbeat hymns, dancing and praiseful ``hallelujahs,'' brought together faithful churchgoers as well as those for whom church isn't always a Sunday ritual. There were grandmothers who had not seen Wenski for years, teenagers who he had baptized and those who had only heard of him through word-of-mouth.

``This is a good Haitian friend,'' said 55-year-old Jean Bourgiquot, who had never met Wenski, but echoed a common refrain: Wenski isn't just a man that knows Haitians, but ``a Haitian.''

Archbishop Wenski, has weighed in on the immigration debate. This from his Op-Ed in the Miami Herald:

Victor Hugo's 19th-century novel Les Miserables tells how pride and neglect of mercy represented in the bitterly zealous legalism of Inspector Javert ultimately destroys him. Today, modern-day Javerts, on radio and TV talk shows, fan flames of resentment against supposed law breakers, equating them with terrorists intent on hurting us. However, these immigrants ask only for the opportunity to become legal -- to come out of the shadows where they live in fear of a knock on their door in the dead of night or an immigration raid to their work place. Like Jean Valjean, today's migrants only look for the opportunity to redeem themselves through honest work. Today, many take umbrage at the Catholic bishops' advocacy on behalf of these ``illegals'' -- but, in doing so, we stand in a proud moral tradition, like the novel's benevolent Bishop Myriel, who gave his candlesticks to the desperate Jean Valjean and protected him from arrest by Javert.

While I myself am sympathetic to the Arizona law -- i.e. what are border states supposed to do when their urgent concerns are not shared by their federal government? -- my thoughts and votes on this issue can be affected by those who come to the debate with serious moral currency.

In this sense, and this sense only, Archbishop Wenski is the anti-Crist.

Back in Novemebr 2008, there was an interesting article about seminarians at St. John Vianney by one of the writers of the Wenski article, Jaweed Kaleem. One of the most positive [i.e. fair] articles on Catholics, was possibly written by a Muslim [my assumption based on his name]. As the old saying goes, only in Miami.

Wenski's Op-Ed in the Miami Herald on Immigration Reform is copied in full at end of post.

----------------------------------------------------
Let `illegals' stay, earn their citizenship - BY THOMAS WENSKI

U.S. BISHOPS - www.miamiarch.org

To those who accused Jesus of breaking the laws of his day, he replied, in Mark 2:27: ``The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.''

This teaching underscores the point that positive law, even Divine positive law, is meant to benefit, not to enslave, mankind. The patriots who broke the law by tossing tea into Boston Harbor understood this -- as did Rosa Parks, who broke the law by refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. When laws fail to advance the common good, they can and should be changed.

Our immigration laws need to be changed: They are antiquated and inadequate for the promotion and regulation of social and economic relations of 21st-century America. On this point everyone seemingly agrees. However, the solutions proposed should not make the situation worse. Outdated laws, ill adapted to the increasing interdependence of our world and the globalization of labor, are bad laws. Proposed changes, however, must take into account both human dignity and the national interest.

For this reason, the U.S. bishops and a broad bipartisan coalition ranging from unions to chambers of commerce have supported broad comprehensive immigration reform that, while addressing future needs for labor by providing for a legal guest-worker program, also offers an ``earned'' path to legalization for those 10 million or so workers already in the country as well as fixing the unacceptable backlogs for family reunification visas that keep families separated for intolerable lengths of time.

A narrow, restrictive legislation focusing on solely ``enforcement'' will only make matters worse. Indeed, a billion dollars has been spent on border enforcement over the past 10 years -- and yet, until this current recession, illegal immigration had increased because the labor market demanded willing and able workers. Illegal immigration should not be tolerated. It leads to abuse and exploitation of the migrants themselves; and, ultimately, businesses that rely on their labor -- and, in doing so, help fuel the growth of the American economy -- would prefer and benefit from a reliable, legal work force.

But, fixing illegal immigration does not require the ``demonization'' of so-called ``illegals.'' America has always been a land of promise and opportunity for those willing to work hard. We can provide for our national security and secure borders without making America, a nation of immigrants, less a land of promise or opportunity for immigrants.

Victor Hugo's 19th-century novel Les Miserables tells how pride and neglect of mercy represented in the bitterly zealous legalism of Inspector Javert ultimately destroys him. Today, modern-day Javerts, on radio and TV talk shows, fan flames of resentment against supposed law breakers, equating them with terrorists intent on hurting us. However, these immigrants ask only for the opportunity to become legal -- to come out of the shadows where they live in fear of a knock on their door in the dead of night or an immigration raid to their work place. Like Jean Valjean, today's migrants only look for the opportunity to redeem themselves through honest work. Today, many take umbrage at the Catholic bishops' advocacy on behalf of these ``illegals'' -- but, in doing so, we stand in a proud moral tradition, like the novel's benevolent Bishop Myriel, who gave his candlesticks to the desperate Jean Valjean and protected him from arrest by Javert.

For this reason, we call upon Congress to seize the opportunity for a comprehensive fix to our broken immigration system. To date, its failure to act has contributed to neo-nativist anti-immigrant sentiment and to ill-advised initiatives like Arizona's recent immigration law that usurps what is the purview of the federal government.

A nation that honors lawbreakers like the patriots of the ``Boston Tea Party,'' a nation that can allow the dignified defiance of Rosa Parks in her act of lawbreaking to touch its conscience, is a nation that also can make room for modern-day Jean Valjeans. We can be a nation of laws, without becoming a nation of Javerts. As Jesus reminded the embittered zealots of his day, laws are designed for the benefit -- not the harm -- of humankind.

Thomas Wenski is the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Miami.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/06/1667159/let-illegals-stay-earn-their-citizenship.html#ixzz0qAqb65aE
----------------------------------------------

Read more!

President Reagan on 40th Anniversary of D-Day

From remarks delivered by President Reagan celebrating the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1984 Normandy, France:

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Check out Douglas Brinkley's book about the assault on Normandy and how Reagan and his speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, combined to make a tribute 40 years later - The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion

President Reagan's entire Normandy speech referenced is copied in full at end of post.

----------------------------------------------------
Remarks delivered by President Reagan celebrating the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1984 Normandy, France

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them here. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air singed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well, everyone was. You remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come form the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold, and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winniped Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II: 20 million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their valor and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/06/06/the_boys_of_pointe_du_hoc_105873.html at June 06, 2010 - 06:52:14 PM PDT
----------------------------------------------

Read more!