I fully agree with joebuck's letter. I was distressed, this morning, to read: "("Christian," here and throughout, indicates fundamentalist or evangelical Protestants.)" Such shorthand is reckless and irresponsible: why not use "fundamentalist" or some other word? Christian is far to big an umbrella term to use here.

King, I agree with your assertion that "it's right to punish the reaction rather than the provocation, or at least to punish it more harshly." Your reasoning is spot-on, and Zidane--were he continuing as a soccer player--should be dealt with much more severely by FIFA.

As for Materazzi? I can only speculate, but given Zidane's reaction, I'm inclined to believe that Materazzi used "offensive or insulting or abusive language and/or gestures" toward Zidane--the sixth numbered reason for dealing with red cards under FIFA's Law 12 (Fouls and Misconduct): "A player, substitute or substituted player is sent off and shown the red card if he commits any of the following seven offences..."

Materazzi does deserve to be punished. Zidane needs to admit he was wrong, and offer a real apology to Materazzi for not playing under a banner of sportsmanship--FIFA's pet policy for many years now.

I have to wonder what the first twelve are...

I'm reminded, reading about Sunstein's thoughts on echo chambers, of a truly great television moment from Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night. Angry at one of his employees for not sharing a disagreement, the editor says: "It's taken me a lot of years but I've come around to this: If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. And if you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you." It'd be nice if more of us could come around to that position, too.

Canada is so remarkably difficult to govern that our prime minister looks likely to flout a law fixing election dates that his own government passed!

While I appreciate the point of that throwaway line, I find myself resenting it: Canada is in some ways a picture of complexity, partly because of its large size, disparate and dispersed population, provinces that argue with one another and the federal government... And in other ways, we're lucky because despite our prime minister's best efforts, we're not polarized between two parties to the same extent as most of the governments in the United States.