During a break from the World Cup, our neighbors are having an election!

Well, Brazil is out of the World Cup. The deserved to lose to the French. France just played better. Brazil looked tired and the coach took too long to make substitutions. Oh, well. At least Portugal is still in it. I own one of their jerserys, too, and their coach is Brazilian.

In the meantime, we don't have any games until the 4th, but tomorrow, Sunday, the 2nd, we have another real contest going on south of the border--the Mexican Presidential Election. So what? Well, with all the immigration talk here in el Norte, we really should be paying attention. Not because I think the new president-elect is going to be a big player in forming our immigration legislation, but because the major reason why
so many Mexicans come north is because their own economy is not performing well enough to provide for population. If you follow the logic so far, then it should matter to us what goes on within in the borders of our neighbor, Mexico.

Here's a quick primer. There are three main candidates, but one, Roberto Madrazo of the PRI (the Party that ruled Mexico in a near dictatorship for most of the 20th century) has been
running a pretty distant third for quite some time. He is playing himself up as the "moderate choice". The two principal contenders are Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, of a center-left party, the PRD, and Felipe Calderon, of the PAN, a center-right party, of which the current Mexican President, Vicente Fox, also
belongs.

As you can imagine, Calderon's message is one of consistency. Don't change horses mid-stream. He is the choice of most of the upper-middle class and wealthier Mexicans. Meanwhile, Obrador is running on a message of more assistance to the
poor and increased job opportunities. Many of the same Mexicans who support Calderon, are afraid that Obrador will borrow a page from Chavez's (Venezuela) or Morales' (Bolivia) playbooks and assume a dictator-like approach to redistributing wealth in the country. Most political scientists I have read
don't seem to think that Obrador is that radical, but some worry his economic plans don't add up--nothing new in the realm of political promises and economic plans. Obrador himself has listed Franklin Roosevelt as one of his influences--remember the New Deal?

Whatever happens tomorrow, at least ALL the major candidates share one thing in common. They think it is a shame that they are losing so many of their hard-working, entrepreneurial citizens to the United States. So, hopefully, whoever wins, the
new President of Mexico will try to implement an economic policy that will better provide for its growing population.

Of course, there are lots of underlying secondary story lines. This has been a particularly "dirty" campaign with ugly political ads running back and forth. Plus, political analysts are
watching to see if Mexico ends up in the growing column of the new Latin American Left--and if that happens will it go the way of Venezuela or of Chile.

Stay tuned and stay tuned in--we're neighbors afterall.

Have you been watching the World Cup? Bob Schieffer hasn't.

Well, today on Face The Nation one of my Washington heroes, Bob Schieffer, blurted out a confession that rocked my soul. He said, "I have never seen a soccer game." He was responding to an allusion to the World Cup used by one of the reporters on his round table to illustrate a political point. I was really crushed, because I consider Bob Schieffer as one of the good guys--who year after year keeps an open mind, presents a balanced discussion and then at the end of his show gives us a little food for thought and lets us know just where he comes down on an issue or event of our time.

But, Bob, you are now part of the problem. The U.S. will never really be accepted as any more than a bully in the international stage if our leaders, our press, our citizens cannot understand the most basic points of the 'beautiful game'. American football, which I refer to as 'gringoball' to distinguish it from what the rest of the world calls football, does have its following in other countries and even a fledgling European league, but the world doesn't stop for it every four years. Baseball, okay, that's a little more international, since we introduced it to certain Asian countries while we occupied them after major wars and to certain Caribbean nations as entertainment for sugarcane plantation workers, but it hardly occupies the entire globe's collective imagination the way soccer does. And our 'World Series'? What is that? We toss in a token Canadian team and call it a day.

Once when I was teaching English in Brazil, I was helping a student read an economics article in Time. It wasn't even a whole page long, but there were eleven uses of baseball terminology to illustrate points throughout its text. A marketing homerun here. An economic plan in the bottom of the ninth there. A curveball of a policy move. I don't remember them all. While we might think the whole world is learning English, they don't all speak baseball. They do speak soccer. But not us. Not even enlightened, open-minded people like Bob Schieffer speak soccer. Is there any hope for us? The rest of the world does not strike out; they get a red card. They are not in the ninth inning, but the 90th minute.

I actually enjoy baseball. I even like a good game of gringoball, but I have room for soccer in my heart, as well. And during the World Cup, I want to not only feel like an American, but a citizen of this planet we share. Come on, Bob. Come on, America, check out the 'beautiful game'. Join the rest of the world in its joy and celebration for a change. It might make us all a little more welcome when things aren't so bright.

al-Zuquari's dead. So what? Let's watch the World Cup.

Hey everyone. I'm back from my trip to Spain with some students, parents and a friend. It was fantastic, as always. Lots of sights, history, food, wine and shopping, but in between, I kept an eye on the news.

I know, for example that we killed al-Zuquari. Upon finding out, I looked at one of the moms on the trip, one who shares my politics, thank God, and said, "Well, I wonder who will pop up next. You know it is like playing that gopher game with the mallets over there." "Yeah, I know what you mean", she said.

I read that there is already some guy who is supposed to have taken his place at the helm. Meanwhile, we have the developing Haditha massacre, in which seemingly normal, level-headed, moral, god-fearing marines, under the pressure of unrelenting battle and the loss of a beloved comrade seem to have slaughtered innocent civilians, including children. Over here in our hemisphere we had the suicide of three "enemy combatants" who have been held for years with no charges brought against them down in Guantanamo. More good news. I hear the administration feels that it was somehow politically motivated to draw sympathy to the prisoners. I'm sure that being held for years on end with no due process or contact with their families had anything to do with it. Oh well, the "War on Terror" goes on. But never fear, Bush just popped up in Iraq. The new Prime Minister had five minutes warning. Yeah, we trust 'em. Good message.

So, I can't take anymore. Let's just watch the World Cup, people. It is more fun, more therapeutic, more uniting, more festive, more global and more equalizing than anything our whacked out government could ever come up with. It even puts the UN to shame. It rocks! If you are one of those clueless Americans who don't really get it. That's okay. It is a forgiving, inclusive event, so just jump on in. It has been going on for a very long time. We are now in the"finals", but they'll go on until July 9th. You see, each region of the globe only gets so many spots in the "finals", so the qualifying goes on for the year leading up to the "finals", which is a tournament with 32 countries represented. And wow! Look at the countries...the U.S., perennial favorite, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, but also Iran, and little bitty countries like Trinadad and super poor countries like Togo and Paraguay. It is so cool, because unlike the Olympics where we walk in with an army of athletes and some other country has two, all the teams are the same size. They are all playing the same game. They all play with the same equipment--a ball. No super sonic bobsleds for the U.S. and a hand-me-down for the Jamaicans here. No this is as fair as it gets.

The fans are crazy, joyful, partying fools, who have been saving up for the trip since they first found out their team had qualified. They cheer every goal and bemoan every foul in unison--rich or poor, who cares while their team, their country, is on the field.

In Spain, I watched the opening game between power-house, home team, Germany, and tiny far away Costa Rica in a little bar in Toledo, where my Mexican-born friend and I stopped in for some bottled water. The only other people there were the Spanish owner and his Ecuadorian-born bartender. We were united behind the little Spanish-speaking underdogs, knowing that only a miracle could help them, but cheering them nonetheless--bonded in this life by a soccer game and the joy it brought us, even in the loss. At least they scored two goals. Not enough, as Germany scored four, but they were glorious goals.

But talk about an upset, tiny Trinidad tied one of Europe's toughest squads, Sweden, and earned itself a point towards advancing. Wow.

Spain, long divided by the separatists terrorists of its Basque region and the regionalists in Catalonia, is united for its time on the World Cup turf. Some young Spanish only recognize the national flag as a symbol for its country's soccer team. But at least, they are united in that.

Portugal faced its former colony of Angola head-to-head in its opening game. But no shots were fired as Portugal captured the victory this time. Australia won its first game over Pacific neighbor, Japan. The Aussies went wild over their first-ever World Cup win.

Now, back in the States, and an ardent Brazil fan, I dragged my husband to a Brazilian restaurant to watch the game with all the Brazilians in the Austin area. There was a samba band, of course. And we won, but just 1-0 over Croatia, so we need to step it up.

Tune in, folks. I promise it will make the news more bearable.

Our cups runneth over

You know here in the United States our cups runneth over. It is really hard to forget how well we are doing when we are constantly inundated with the "reality" T.V. of Paris Hilton and MTV Cribs, but we are really doing pretty well for ourselves. Of course there is poverty in the United States, but not the same poverty that you see in other parts of the world.

In Brazil, people speak of the difference between pobreza and miseria. Pobreza is poverty. Miseria is complete and utter deprivation. We have pobreza. Too much of the world has miseria. In today's online New York Times there is a multi-media presentation by journalist Nicholas D. Kristof. He traveled to Swaziland in Africa to cover the devastation of the A.I.D.S. epidemic there. Swaziland was never what you'd call a rich country, but now fully 40% of the adult population is infected with the virus that causes A.I.D.S. He profiles several families now headed or soon to be headed by children, because all the adult members of the families have one by one died off, victims of this horrible disease.

These kids, eleven or twelve years old, living in mud huts, students in the 5th grade, have nursed dying parents, grandparents and aunts and now are the heads of households, caring for their younger brothers and sisters as best they can. They eat one meal a day at school. They have one tattered set of clothes. They have no shoes. They have faced cruel death after cruel death. They are "parents". They are 12. They are many.

In contrast, I read an article yesterday in the June 2006 issue of Texas Monthly called "The Gangtas of Godwin Park" about a wealthy teenager in Houston who in "a tragic tale of drugs, money, race, and MySpace" was gunned down in a prescription drug deal gone wrong. It is a cautionary tale for the rich kids I teach here in Austin, who escape the pressures of their expectations with drug use and risky behaviors and for the poor kids I teach here in Austin who must walk the halls next to kids whose lifestyles look to them too much like those depicted on MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen and who want a piece of it. One of the kids now doing time for the death of the wealthy dealer is a poor kid who used to work at McDonald's but fell into a crowd who talked him out of getting it the "slow way" and into getting it the "fast way". Like the child-parents in the New York Times piece, this young man, Dontae Terrell Moore, had helped care for younger relatives at his aunt's crowded rented home not far from where the wealthy victim, Jonathan Finkelman, lived.

By all accounts, Dontae lived in pobreza, not in miseria, but living so close to the very wealthy and being exposed to a steady media diet of the obscenely rich, took its toll on basically a good kid. Jonathan was equally swept up in the weird psychological mix of high academic and social expectations, entitlement, youthful invulnerability and thrill seeking that is pressed on kids these days. They are emotionally immature and sheltered by their parents, but have access to a very fast lifestyle while being pressured to perform. I see it everyday. It leads to acting out at school, cheating on tests, drug and alcohol abuse and risky sexual behaviors. And too many parents are blind to what their "good kids" are doing. Most survive somehow. Some end up like Jonathan.

People should pay more attention to this cautionary tale and should look very closely at what their kids are up to. Problems are not always with "other people's children". People should also look very closely at the stories of the parentless families in Africa, the bleak lives of those in the northern Brazil, those displaced refugees living in torn tents all over the world, the isolated Pakistanis who froze in the mountain winter after last year's earthquake--all the people who live not in pobreza but in miseria. If we could only stop comparing ourselves to the miniscule number of Paris Hiltons and Kayne Wests in the world and take more frequent notice of the hundreds of millions of human beings struggling to maintain some dignity for themselves and their families with no food and no change of clothes and death at their door, we would see that our cup runneth over.

Of course, we should continue to push forward, to strive for a better life. It is part of the human spirit, but we should do it with a level of gratitude that fills us up rather than a jealousy that empties our souls.

English the National Language?

It passed in the Senate. But why? Was English in danger? No. I'll bet most people didn't even know that we didn't have a national language. Well, back when we were forming this country and drafting a Constitution it was decided by our wise founding fathers not to have one. First of all, we had just broken away from those taxing imperalists, the English, remember? German was bounced around as an alternative, but cooler heads prevailed. After all, whether or not our founding fathers had studied linguistics, they intrinsically understood that we would speak whatever worked for us--without even symbolically excluding anyone who spoke another native tongue.

What works for us is English. Immigrants learn English--even Spanish-speaking immigrants. In three generations the home-country language dies in any family here unless the latest generation studies the language in school. We have a great, big Spanish-speaking neighbor. Our neighborhood, our hemisphere, is crowded with Spanish-speaking countries, where, by the way, it seems anyone with a little extra cash pays for an English course. Why? Because English is not in danger.

Not only does the rich neighbor, the United States, speak English, but English has become the lingua-franca of the world. Business is conducted all over the world in English. English is the official language of air traffic controlers the world over. It is widely recognized that immigrants must learn English to integrate into the United States, and learning English will benefit them even if they return to their homeland. As a teacher in a public school, I see kids learning English. No, they don't learn it over night. Yes, in their initial years in the U.S. they feel more comfortable with those who speak their home language. Of course they do. They are in a strange place. But they learn English.

So here we are in 2006, trying to make English the official national language of the United States. For more than 200 years we have just let people figure out that English was the language to speak to get things done, to do business in this country. For more than 200 years we made no official, national moves, to intimidate anyone into learning English. We didn't officially rank English above anyone's native tongue on a national scale. So why now? My husband says racism. I can't come up with another answer that makes much sense.