Where do I begin? Where does anyone begin in the Middle East?

I've been away from my blog for awhile and in that time the world has turned itself upside down again. We still don't know who the next president of Mexico will be, though I predict that Calderon will come through leaving Obrador and his supporters with a close enough loss to demand respect. Count on them to jump on any weakness shown in the new government.

Meanwhile, the fighting in Lebanon has blown a new hole in the Middle East. It is so hard to really even see to the corner, let alone around it or down the road on this one. It has the Muslim World split. It is for sure winning Israel new or at least more fierce enemies. Will it reduce the threat they face from Hezbollah? We'll see. If they manage to do that, will something more terrible come in and take its place? What is Syria or Iran's role really? Has this terrorist organization gotten away from everyone? Will the pockets of anger directed by some Arabs angainst Hezbollah hold up if Isreal continues to inflict major punishment on the Lebanon? Personally, I think the Israelis have gone a bit overboard and are causing too much destruction of government and civilian property, lives and infrastructure. I believe it will result in yet another generation of Lebanese who hate and fear, and in the end, threaten the Zionist state, but I do not pretend to know enough about the psyche of the region to say with certainty if that is a risk that needs to be taken or not. And what of our support of Isreal? Do we need to stir up any more Islamic rancor?

Maybe that is why I have stayed away from the blog for a while. I read and listen to unending analysis of the situation, but too many intelligent people have too many differing views and what seems a subtilty in the Middle East, seems so often to be someone's essential point or emotional trigger that sorting it out is too much. I don't know how much we should wade into this one. I know we should not have waded into Iraq.

So often it seems we want to paint conflicts in this region with broad strokes, but there are so many divisions, so many alliances, so many competing needs and histories in the region, that it is sometimes what appears to be the smallest detail that can tip a scale one way or another. Clerics do not all agree. Sects don't see conflicts in the same light. Farsi speakers resent Arabic speakers and Arabic speakers distrust Farsi speakers. Governments are often too much absorbed in their own preservation to look objectively at problems. Oil alliances are on the line. Religious truths are worth dying for, but no two groups seem to hold the same set truths. In many corners poverty and ignorance are manipulated rather than alleviated. How do you wade into that mysterious morass?

One thing is sure about the Middle East, there is too much we do not know. Sadly, there is too much that our leaders seem not to know. Not to truly understand. I don't know if members of our government are able to choose which "experts" to listen to any more than I am. We must tread more carefully than we have recently if we are to tread at all.

What's wrong with this picture?: French World Cup Team

Perhaps you are aware of the on-going racial tension in France, in fact in much of Europe, in recent years. France is particularly notorious for its intolerance of immigrants and their influences on the local culture. No Muslim head scarves are allowed in their public schools, for example. You may remember the riots that broke out in Paris this spring fueled by the high rates of unemployment and the feeling of exclusion of Muslim youth.

But have you seen the French National Soccer Team? Of the 23 players, only nine are white. Nine. While the team was critized early for all manner of issues--playing style, age of players, and yes, racial make-up, the country is rallying around 'Les bleus', the pet name for the team. Before the winning began, the New York Times reports, right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, head of the National Front, an anti-immigrant party, publicly bemoaned the number of blacks on the team and the lack of enthusiasm the players demonstrated in the singing of the national anthem.

But now they are winning. They are in the semi-finals! The country is elated and united behind their team. Before we get all crazy about the hypocrisy, think of how many minorities we have sent off to war over the centuries only to snub them upon their return to the homefront. No vote for a while, no lunch counter service, back of the bus...Finally we came around. And most would argue that we're not quite there yet.

What will happen after the World Cup is over? We'll see. Is this the start of some national self-examination and growth or just good soccer? Only time will tell, but if the French can play together, maybe they can live together, too.

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.