1. So Israel is at it again, if one can say that they
ever cease. A policy of absolute aggression, it would
seem. Whenever the Gazans act up, Israel says,
¨Either you control the militants or we will have to
do it¨. Could it be anymore blatant? The only way to
stop us from assaulting you/continuing to assault you
further is if you declare war upon yourselves, hunt
down yourselves and slaughter yourselves so we do not
have to.
Same thing straightaway with the Hizballah in Lebanon.
No chance of a prisoner swap this time, we´re too
busy obliterating you bastards and thank you for the
opportunity.
But if you`d like this carnage to stop, if you´d like
this airforce/artillery/tank/naval blockade and
general shooting-fish-in-a-barrel invasion to stop,
Lebanon, you can do it very simply: Start a civil war
right now to ¨control¨ the Hizballah, never mind that
they are the strongest military force in the country.
Its a foreign policy of hyperaggression. Naturally
the West sits back and does nothing, as usual. Must
wait for Israel to finish its job first, of course.
Will Syria take this opportunity to re-occupy Lebanon
as Hizballah takes a huge shitkicking? Of course that
would be lining up to be the next fish in the barrel,
but if they could re-trench themselves, it would be
quite a political victory for them. Likely they´ll
not have the nerve, as Israel wouldn´t hesitate to
pound them into the stone age at the slightest
opportunity. But if Israel attacks Hiz. near the
Syrian border...
It made me think of all that Colin Powell b.s. about the military doctrine of
`overwhelming force`, ie, the American high-tech, low risk death-from-above approach
to warfare. Basically the doctrine says, never go to war, until you have a 9 to 1 advantage,
or is that 19 to 1? That way you can achieve your miltary objective easily and put the fear of
hellfire into the rest of world. Of course its attributed to the deep military thinking of Powell
and his Pentagon boys, but let`s give credit where credit is due: the Israelis, who`ve been pounding
the shit out of civilian populations since decades. And look at what it has gotten them:
occupation without end.
2.Congratulations Floyd $%&!ing Landis! (Yes, Floyd
reads my blog all the time.) That 17th stage victory
was worthy of the hallowed name of Eddy Merckx. What a
piece of riding, what a spectacular attack the like of
which you never see anymore. Well, I never do anyway.
Truth is, I was rooting for Landis to win the Tour
ever since that poor bastard Jan Ullrich got
blackballed the day before the Tour de France was due
to start. And now Ullrich has been fired from
T-Mobile Team, of which he has been the pillar since
1997. What a disaster.
In a sense I liked Landis for a similar reason to
liking Ullrich: attitude. Landis never shows that
Lance Armstrong, I-am-the-centre-of-the-Universe
attitude, just this laid-back but very determined
understated sort of thing. I like that. And Landis
did it without a powerhouse team like T-Mobile much less Armstrong`s New
York Yankees of cycling.
Still, the Phonak boys really busted their arses the
whole way for him, sacrificing everything for the
leader, as it should be.
Enough.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Tour de Fr., 9me etape
Hello to All Seven of You
One nice thing about my current job is the fact that I am done with work by nine a.m. and can scoot home in time to watch the Tour coverage on tv. I´m always in time to get the last 45 km of live racing from the highways and byways of good old France, with somewhat clueless Hispanic announcers yammering on.
Today was a sprinter´s stage, the last before the Pyranees (I think its the P´s), ending in the city of Dax, wherever that is. It was an awesome bunch sprint yet again with McKewen losing to the great Oscar Freire of Spain by less than half a wheel, with my man Zabel ripping up the inside line and past Tom Boonen no less to take third, his best finish yet this Tour. The way Zabel just keeps going at it, years after his peak, still giving everything against the world´s best never ceases to inspire me. I know he just wants one more stage win in the Tour so much. He´s got more victories than anyone else in the peloton, won the Tour´s Green Jersey six times over but he´s still totally hungry and won´t give up at thirty-five.
Zabel wasn´t even supposed to get much of a chance in the Tour with this new Milram team, as they had signed the superfast sprinter Alessandro Petacchi and the team would have been working for Ale-Jet had he not broken his kneecap in the Giro. So after the snub of not being picked for T-Mobile´s Tour squad last year after thirteen years with them, Zabel is back in action, always getting top ten finishes in the opening week´s sprinting stages.
I really needed to get that off my chest, I don´t care how irrelevant it is to any of you. I actually got to see my man Zabel in action at the World´s in Verona, Italy in 2004, if only briefly. It was the final, excruciating lap, and I had spent the previous forty-five minutes of the six-and-a-half hour race climbing the mountainous part of the course. Finally the front end of the race showed up and there was Zabel in first place, just giving it with full force in the heat of the 16th lap. To see a pure sprinter hammering up a mountain like that after 240+ km and in October no less (after eight months of racing), was really amazing. Of course, Freire beat him in the sprint and Zabel had to live with second, tears streaming down his face after a final furious effort over the cobblestones. It was particularly frustrating for Zabel because a) in the World´s your team is ill-practiced and the race is so long and difficult that making your move at the right time without something going wrong is hard enough, and b) Freire had beat him that spring right at the line in San Remo at the longest one-day race of the year.
It had been a spectacular fiasco for such a seasoned sprinting pro, that loss in Milano-San Remo, because Zabel (who´s won that race four times) went into the victory salute five metres from the line, not realizing that Freire was about to explode past him, which of course he did to Zabel´s eternal humiliation. Much later he said, ¨I didn´t see him there, I didn´t hear him, I didn´t feel him there¨.
Freire, who´s won three world championships, is a specialist at the long-range one day race with the possibly the best punchout speed in the final metres of a bunch sprint. It was his second stage win of this Tour, and it was typically amazing. Freire just exploding forwards and even the Aussie pocketrocket himself, Robbie McKuwen couldn´t reel him in despite his typical last-ditch move to leftwards off somebody else´s wheel. Robbie, who´d won three of the first eight stages (which is incredibly dominant), immediately gave Freire the congratulatory slap on the back after almost sideswiping him at 70km/hour. Ahh, biking racing...
One nice thing about my current job is the fact that I am done with work by nine a.m. and can scoot home in time to watch the Tour coverage on tv. I´m always in time to get the last 45 km of live racing from the highways and byways of good old France, with somewhat clueless Hispanic announcers yammering on.
Today was a sprinter´s stage, the last before the Pyranees (I think its the P´s), ending in the city of Dax, wherever that is. It was an awesome bunch sprint yet again with McKewen losing to the great Oscar Freire of Spain by less than half a wheel, with my man Zabel ripping up the inside line and past Tom Boonen no less to take third, his best finish yet this Tour. The way Zabel just keeps going at it, years after his peak, still giving everything against the world´s best never ceases to inspire me. I know he just wants one more stage win in the Tour so much. He´s got more victories than anyone else in the peloton, won the Tour´s Green Jersey six times over but he´s still totally hungry and won´t give up at thirty-five.
Zabel wasn´t even supposed to get much of a chance in the Tour with this new Milram team, as they had signed the superfast sprinter Alessandro Petacchi and the team would have been working for Ale-Jet had he not broken his kneecap in the Giro. So after the snub of not being picked for T-Mobile´s Tour squad last year after thirteen years with them, Zabel is back in action, always getting top ten finishes in the opening week´s sprinting stages.
I really needed to get that off my chest, I don´t care how irrelevant it is to any of you. I actually got to see my man Zabel in action at the World´s in Verona, Italy in 2004, if only briefly. It was the final, excruciating lap, and I had spent the previous forty-five minutes of the six-and-a-half hour race climbing the mountainous part of the course. Finally the front end of the race showed up and there was Zabel in first place, just giving it with full force in the heat of the 16th lap. To see a pure sprinter hammering up a mountain like that after 240+ km and in October no less (after eight months of racing), was really amazing. Of course, Freire beat him in the sprint and Zabel had to live with second, tears streaming down his face after a final furious effort over the cobblestones. It was particularly frustrating for Zabel because a) in the World´s your team is ill-practiced and the race is so long and difficult that making your move at the right time without something going wrong is hard enough, and b) Freire had beat him that spring right at the line in San Remo at the longest one-day race of the year.
It had been a spectacular fiasco for such a seasoned sprinting pro, that loss in Milano-San Remo, because Zabel (who´s won that race four times) went into the victory salute five metres from the line, not realizing that Freire was about to explode past him, which of course he did to Zabel´s eternal humiliation. Much later he said, ¨I didn´t see him there, I didn´t hear him, I didn´t feel him there¨.
Freire, who´s won three world championships, is a specialist at the long-range one day race with the possibly the best punchout speed in the final metres of a bunch sprint. It was his second stage win of this Tour, and it was typically amazing. Freire just exploding forwards and even the Aussie pocketrocket himself, Robbie McKuwen couldn´t reel him in despite his typical last-ditch move to leftwards off somebody else´s wheel. Robbie, who´d won three of the first eight stages (which is incredibly dominant), immediately gave Freire the congratulatory slap on the back after almost sideswiping him at 70km/hour. Ahh, biking racing...
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
A little good news
I feel bad. I have the weight of a certain guilt upon my shoulders. Thing is, I never say a nice thing about Mexico, Tuxtla, my school, or my job, and soon enough its all going to be history and I won´t be able to remember such details.
1. Mexicans are good.
That´s right, you read correctly a blatent gneralization that I may proceed to back up with evidence. If you find yourself standing in a 27 person long line on a Sunday afternoon in an utterly obscure part of an obscure city in a general store, people do not just step right in front of you, because you are just some stupid-looking tourista. Not at all, they treat you as politely as they do all the others. The Chiapanecas are some of the most decent and fair people you´re likely to meet in this world. And that includes most of my students, despite my oft-stated desire to bind, beat, banish, or fling them out of helicopter, the simple truth is that most of them have the grace of Jesus deeply set into them. Some do not and they should be held underwater for periods of time.
2. My bosses.
A case in point. I am continually in trouble, behind or too far ahead in the material, constantly allowing all the wrong things to happen, whole classes failing tests and such, and they just keep dealing with me respectfully, only with a hint of passive agressivity now and then. They would be somewhat justified in really cracking down, but that´s not their style. They do it with the softer touch, the chain of panoptic surveillence ends only in explanations and problem-solving. Many things have driven me and plenty of other mastros extraños batty at this little school (and country), but I have to say that they´ve had aplenty incompetence in return. And they pay on time in full.
3. Football.
I too have the World Cup fever, and this time of year its a good thing to have. Did you see that Thierry Henry goal when France played Brazil? That was... ¡STUPENDO! That guy is my new superhero - the speed, power, and ball-dribbling grace that man pravails with rocks my world. And against the greatest team in the world. All Brazil needed to do was neautralize Henry and they couldn´t, not with all the king´s men and horses. The %&/!!ing Tour of France is on and I´m mildly infuriated with missing it while they show pingpong matches from Ohio on %$"!ing ESPN. But only mildly.
4. The heat, mosquitos, cars, pollution etc.
Despite my rampant disgust, kvetching, and general hatred of everything, its not really so bad, except for the skeeters, which have turned me into a hotblooded killer. Nothing like a little hunting with yourself as bait. Rationality suffers in the tropical heat, as you can imagine. But its not always so hot.
5. The Mexican Elections. I haven´t seen La Jaffafa (the señora whose house i live in) since the final days, and now they´re deep into the recounts, supposedly with an announcement today of this closest-ever presential race. Lefty PRDista Obrador vs. centrist/righty PANista Caldaron (maybe? what do I know of it all?) Still, pretty fascinating to a political junkie like me. Everyone´s being so... Mexican about it. As in so calm you wouldn´t know its even happening. They´ve only had democracy for 15 years and already they´re bored with it. Surprize, surprize. 60% voter turnout, just like in Canada. (Yes, yes, I know, it was 62.5% last time so good for us.)
And off I go, full of joy and gratitude.
1. Mexicans are good.
That´s right, you read correctly a blatent gneralization that I may proceed to back up with evidence. If you find yourself standing in a 27 person long line on a Sunday afternoon in an utterly obscure part of an obscure city in a general store, people do not just step right in front of you, because you are just some stupid-looking tourista. Not at all, they treat you as politely as they do all the others. The Chiapanecas are some of the most decent and fair people you´re likely to meet in this world. And that includes most of my students, despite my oft-stated desire to bind, beat, banish, or fling them out of helicopter, the simple truth is that most of them have the grace of Jesus deeply set into them. Some do not and they should be held underwater for periods of time.
2. My bosses.
A case in point. I am continually in trouble, behind or too far ahead in the material, constantly allowing all the wrong things to happen, whole classes failing tests and such, and they just keep dealing with me respectfully, only with a hint of passive agressivity now and then. They would be somewhat justified in really cracking down, but that´s not their style. They do it with the softer touch, the chain of panoptic surveillence ends only in explanations and problem-solving. Many things have driven me and plenty of other mastros extraños batty at this little school (and country), but I have to say that they´ve had aplenty incompetence in return. And they pay on time in full.
3. Football.
I too have the World Cup fever, and this time of year its a good thing to have. Did you see that Thierry Henry goal when France played Brazil? That was... ¡STUPENDO! That guy is my new superhero - the speed, power, and ball-dribbling grace that man pravails with rocks my world. And against the greatest team in the world. All Brazil needed to do was neautralize Henry and they couldn´t, not with all the king´s men and horses. The %&/!!ing Tour of France is on and I´m mildly infuriated with missing it while they show pingpong matches from Ohio on %$"!ing ESPN. But only mildly.
4. The heat, mosquitos, cars, pollution etc.
Despite my rampant disgust, kvetching, and general hatred of everything, its not really so bad, except for the skeeters, which have turned me into a hotblooded killer. Nothing like a little hunting with yourself as bait. Rationality suffers in the tropical heat, as you can imagine. But its not always so hot.
5. The Mexican Elections. I haven´t seen La Jaffafa (the señora whose house i live in) since the final days, and now they´re deep into the recounts, supposedly with an announcement today of this closest-ever presential race. Lefty PRDista Obrador vs. centrist/righty PANista Caldaron (maybe? what do I know of it all?) Still, pretty fascinating to a political junkie like me. Everyone´s being so... Mexican about it. As in so calm you wouldn´t know its even happening. They´ve only had democracy for 15 years and already they´re bored with it. Surprize, surprize. 60% voter turnout, just like in Canada. (Yes, yes, I know, it was 62.5% last time so good for us.)
And off I go, full of joy and gratitude.
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