1. The hustle and flow and intensity of the contests.

2. No 3-minute breaks, every five minutes, for corporate advertisements.

3. The emotion of national teams playing in their national colors.

4. No 3-minute breaks, every five minutes, for corporate advertisements.

5. The grit, determination, and skill needed to score a goal.

6. No time-outs for Brent Musberger reports on every tragedy overcome by each athlete.

7. No time-outs for Bob Costas updates what the U.S. team had for breakfast on its day off.

8. The games seem to be about something more than corporate profits.

9. Did I mention the absence of 3-minute commercial breaks every five minutes?

10. You get my point.

As far as where we go from here, I don't know that I'll be marking my calendar for the next MLS match-up; but I would definitely watch English Premier League games, or Beckham playing for Real Madrid, etc., if such were offered on TV. Friday and Saturday nights reportedly are dead nights for TV in North America; so how about then?

The American Republic

Born: July 4, 1776

Died: December 9, 2000 (the day the vote-counting was stopped)

You will be sorely missed.

The lesson of the failed American experiment is this: the principle of "One Person, One Vote" must be adhered to, in order to have of a government that reflects and respects the wishes of its people. Avoid anything resembling the U.S. congress and electoral college, in which rural votes in small states weighed more than urban votes in big states. It was that fatal flaw which finally enabled right-wing extremists to seize power against the wishes of the minority, and repeal the republic by pandering to the prejudices of the most religious and most stupid portion of the population.

I meant to say that the right-wing seized power against the wishes of the MAJORITY of the American people (not "minority"). I proofread my letter three times, too. Geez.

My basis for saying this is that while Vice President Gore barely missed receiving a majority of the popular vote in 2000, he did win a plurality (i.e., Gore got more votes than Bush). And if I remember correctly, Gore and Nader together did win a clear majority of the votes. Yet Bush-Cheney won the electoral college, because the red states carry more per capita electoral weight than the blue states. (The most hideous example being that a vote for Junior in red Wyoming carried 4 TIMES! the weight of a vote for Gore in blue California.)

Bush-Cheney Lied, and

Thousands Have Died;

but 9/11 Bin-Forgotten

Shame on the Republicans

I, too, used to think that penalty kick shootouts were just about the lamest thing in sports (second only to National League pitchers trying to hit). As so many others have already pointed out, they might as well just flip a coin to decide the game.

But now I get it: the whole point is that it IS as arbitrary as flipping a coin. To wit: if neither team can score a deciding goal in 120 minutes, then the two sides surely have proven themselves equals on that day, and the match is a tie. To play any further, beyond the point of exhaustion, would cheapen the game in the minds of those who love it (as would allowing more substitutions, apparently).

Thus, Sunday's true result is that Italy and France rest as equals atop the soccer world, just as Brazil and Italy were equals in 1994, and just as the U.S. and China women's teams were equals in 1997. However, because (and only because) the world demands one "champion", we THEN have the arbitrary spectacle of penalty kick shootouts.

On the other hand, maybe penalty kick shootouts are not so arbitrary. Does anyone really doubt that the team that should have won (at least, after Zidane's puzzling act), did win? Or that the best teams won all of the other matches that were decided by penalty kicks (or that Brazil was the best team in 1994, etc.)? This seems to be true of soccer in general: that despite its many quirks, the best teams always found a way to advance.

In any event, this neophyte already is looking forward to 2010 -- provided the Republicans don't destroy the world (besides Iraq) between now and then.

The statements that have been made by Bush-Cheney in the last couple of days reflect a worldview in which Israel fights as a U.S. ally in the same global war on terror, against the same enemies. I believe the neo-cons see this not as a discrete conflict, which the U.S. in a pre-9/11 era might have mediated as an honest broker, but rather as a new front, joining Afghanistan and Iraq, in the same ongoing war.

The neo-cons have wanted a wider war involving Syria and/or Iran, as part of their grand plan to remake the Middle East; and a wider war would serve to solve some problems for Bush-Cheney, such as covering the disaster in Iraq and forcing the red state base to once more rally around the republicans in time for this fall's elections. The Bush-Cheney talk of "terrorists" and "WMD's" and their demands for "disarming" and "complying" with hitherto obscure U.N. resolutions sounds awfully familiar.

Will the U.S. soon be at war with Syria and Iran? I don't know. But given what we know about this administration, I'd bet there are some very influential people in the White House right now arguing in favor of such a war -- assuming, indeed, that the decision to attack has not already been made.

If the U.S. is no longer tied down in Iraq after 2016, will it THEN go after bin-Forgotten and his criminal associates, who (we've been told) killed 3000 innocent people 9/11?