Roundabout: Soccer, Shootings, Senate, FOOTBALL
In which Josh takes a brief spin around the bloggable items in his head this evening.
Soccer
Rob tipped me off yesterday to the latest English column critical of MLS and its handling of David Beckham, by Martin Samuel of The Times. Unlike most of its genre, though, it’s actually well-thought-out (which I would expect, since it was Rob that sent it to me) and merits a response.
I can confess to being at least as confused as Samuel at the post-Beckham proliferation of coverage of MLS in the English press. The league is getting better and pulling in more stars, but it’s barely more newsworthy in the English context than, say, the Portuguese or Greek domestic leagues. They care about Beckham’s fitness for international play, and that’s all, which is fair; the variety of Premiership jerseys in my closet is entirely based on the wanderings of Claudio Reyna, Brad Friedel and Tim Howard. But the other problem is that, since Beckham plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy, the public face of MLS management in Britain is Alexi Lalas. For those of you not up on your American soccer history, consider Lalas as GM the equivalent of your favorite team in another sport hiring, say, David Wells, Sterling Sharpe, or Jeremy Roenick. He’s always been an entertaining commentator because he’s opinionated and unconcerned with public reaction. But that doesn’t make him an intelligent manager, and does make him an awful ambassador. I’ve said all along that I don’t mind having Beckham in MLS, it’s just a shame he had to go to such an incompetent organization as L.A. The image Lalas projects to an international audience is why.
Shootings
All I really need to say is that you should read the panel report for yourself to figure out what the most important conclusions were. It’s the only thing I remember from 10th grade Global Studies, but it’s huge: when there’s a primary source document available, go to it. Don’t trust TV soundbites, don’t trust newspaper summary articles, and especially don’t trust headline writers. I wouldn’t recommend putting too much stock in Internet bloviators either. Read the whole thing and think for yourself.
Senate
We knew this was happening, didn’t we? He’s been picking even more fights with Republican leadership than usual lately, and he’d be 87 years old by the end of the following Senate term. The state Republican Party had better take heed, though. If When Mark Warner runs, this race will be difficult for Republicans to win. If, knowing we’re going to face Marknotjohn in the fall, Jim Gilmore still manages to win the Republican primary over Tom Davis in a movement conservative show of force, we might as well not contest the general election, because we’ll get trounced, and we’ll deserve it.
FOOTBALL
This Saturday is about so much more, it defies analysis in usual terms. So let’s skip it, go get our hearts back into cheering for the Hokies, and I’ll come back next week with thoughts before a real challenge at LSU on a dark night in the swamp.
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31 August 2007 / 0 Comments / Tags: soccer, life, politics, football