November Update

It seems almost pointless now to talk about what's happening in our family and what's coming up, as very little is going on and even less is in the offing.  Dorine and I are planning to go to the cabin in Colorado later this month with Mike and Judy P_____, but that will be a weekend jaunt consisting of two nights only.  (Dorine has a vacation day she could use, but Judy, like Dorine before her, just hired on with the public schools as a full-time educational assistant, and she obviously doesn't have any vacation saved up yet.)  The holiday season is almost upon us, but I can't seem to care much about it aside from the time I'll have off work.  I'd like to plan a longer trip somewhere -- besides Utah, that is -- but I seem to be the only one in our family who has any real passion for travel.  I long intended to take my mother down to Ruidoso (Downs) to see the Hubbard Museum of the American West, but Mom, now almost ninety years old, is simply too weak to make the trip, and I find little joy in traveling by myself.

Chris, Kristy's husband, is still running his own auto-repair shop on East Central, something he seems to have been born to do -- although that doesn't always translate into a fat living, especially in hard economic times.  Heidi and Dion have had a few disagreements, arising mostly from differences in values, both personal and financial; Dion's got a great heart and, from what I've seen, a strong work ethic, but his and Heidi's priorities don't always mesh well.  Devery and Easton are now living in their home on the west side.  Easton's dad spent several weeks, with their help, renovating the inside of the home -- they did a lot to it -- although they still need to re-roof before they'll be able to take out their own mortgage loan on the property.  Easton's job with Bradbury Stamm seems to be going well.  Darren is still at BYU and is doing very well in school; he plans to take a lot of hard classes next semester and will probably need to quit his job in the dining room at the Cancer...er, Cannon...Center.  Kiley seems to be adjusting well to college at UNM, although she doesn't seem to care much for being a music major.  Her erstwhile boyfriend Erich came home from the MTC only a few days before he would have left for Australia; he was suffering from "separation anxiety" and had become quite ill, and now it seems less likely that he'll give it another go.  (I have two comments to make.  One, it was a good thing that I left home for freshman year before I served a church mission, as I had that year to overcome my own "separation anxiety," which was pretty profound at times.  [I cashed checks on at least two occasions for bus fare home before allowing myself to be talked into staying at BYU.]  And, two, for some reason the church called Erich almost six months before the day he reported to the MTC -- what good could be expected to come from forcing him to wait such an inhumane length of time?)

The grandkids are all doing well, and Mason and Tyler (see photo above) recently had their first birthdays.  (That's no optical illusion -- Mason really is that much bigger than Tyler.)  Both are about the cutest little boys imaginable.

Random Thoughts, Part 5

1. The subject of vote fraud has come up several times already in this election season, and Election Day isn't even until next Tuesday.  I think fraudulent voting is almost exclusively the province of the Democratic Party.  First, who regards it unnecessary -- even "intimidating" -- to require documentation of one's citizenship to register to vote, and then of one's identity to cast a vote?  A person almost can't urinate in this country without showing ID, yet we're to believe that the exercise of the greatest privilege of citizenship should be accomplished without the slightest proof of eligibility?  And, pray tell, what eligible citizen is going to feel "intimidated" by having to show at least a driver's license or other government ID before he can vote?  (On the other hand, who benefits when dead people, non-citizens, convicted felons, and impersonators vote?)  

And, second, when was the last time anyone saw a Republican come out ahead in a vote recount where he wasn't ahead in the count initially?  I can think of three dubious examples off the top of my head, however, where a Democrat "magically" won a close election after trailing in the first count: (1) the Washington governor's election in 2004; (2) the Minnesota senate race in 2008; and (3) the New Mexico portion of the 2000 presidential election, when Al Gore got the nod due to some late-arriving (i.e., late-manufactured) votes.  In fact, I believe the biggest reason Democrats were so upset about George W. Bush's victory in Florida in the 2000 presidential election -- which, of course, put him over the top in the Electoral College -- was that they thought the "fix" was in and, for once, the system didn't permit the theft to take place (though not for lack of effort on the part of the Florida Supreme Court). 

2. The other lovely thing the Democrats are wont to do is flout election laws, a prime example being the completely illegal substitution of Frank Lautenberg for Robert Torricelli as the Democrat candidate for senator in New Jersey in 2002.  The scandal-ridden incumbent Torricelli, who had secured the Democratic nomination unopposed, was going to lose to his Republican opponent, so the party apparatus convinced him to renounce his candidacy and then, with no primary and well past the deadline prescribed by New Jersey law for replacing him on the ballot, put forth Lautenberg as its candidate.  Predictably, the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the Democrats that the law wasn't really "the law" (and, after the 2000 presidential election debacle, the last thing the U.S. Supreme Court wanted to do was get involved in another election controversy, so it denied certiorari), and thus the Dems kept the seat.  Now we find out that Bill Clinton has tried to convince Kendrick Meek, the African-American Dem candidate for the Senate in Florida this year, to quit the race so that the white "independent" (and former Republican In Name Only) Charlie Crist would stand a better chance of beating the Republican Marco Rubio.  Sometimes if seems as though there simply are no means (legal or extra-legal) that are not justified in the Democrats' eyes when it comes to their achieving the ends of power and control.

3. I recently watched the film Quadrophenia, the 1979 production of The Who's "rock opera" of the same name.  (Of course, the screenplay isn't really opera, since, unlike in Tommy, the music only provides the backing track to the story.) It's set in mid-1960s London, when various groups of young people in Great Britain were trying to find an identity through fashion, music, drug use, Lambrettas, and various other media; however, the real story in Quadrophenia is the decline of England in the post-World War II era.  I'm not the first to say it, but Great Britain chose decline, as its rising generation was filled with self-loathing over England's imperial and class-divided past.  The process of decline is ongoing in Britain to this day, as the government, now faced with choices rising from decades of deficit spending to fund its "nanny state," has elected to slash defense spending to near-helpless levels.  I foresee a very dark future for England, which at the very least will involve an existential civil war between the "yobbo" criminal class and second- and third-generation immigrants, mostly Muslims.  Which one is left standing at the end is almost inconsequential to the demise of western-European democracy and, indeed, civilization.

4. I wonder if we'll ever really see the rise of hydrogen-powered cars.  The regulatory environment for a new automotive industry will strongly inhibit private investment, and the government will never provide the impetus for that kind of innovation, especially as greater percentages of tax revenue have to be used to service debt previously incurred.  Rather, the emphasis will be on mass transportation, smaller habitations, lower levels of consumption, sharply curtailed child-bearing, and, in general, a lower standard of living.  When you come to view human beings as a parasite on Mother Earth, instead of her greatest resource, why wouldn't you try to halt their spread?  (Various entities, both government agencies and NGOs, have also been trying to unlock the secret to nuclear fusion -- which, of course, would provide the means for generating unlimited electricity with no radioactive byproducts -- but I see that effort eventually going by the wayside, too, and for the same reasons.)

5. I've now been released from my temple calling, although it was left open that I could return if either (a) I started feeling better, or (b) Dorine became available on Wednesday nights to work in the temple with me on the same shift.  Since I have no real reason to think either one of those conditions will ensue, I think I'm done.  I will miss it in some ways, and I really didn't mind it when I was there; however, given that I spent the rest of the time dreading it, releasing me was the right thing for the temple presidency to do.  I've gained a new appreciation for Job of the Old Testament -- worms aren't eating my skin, but reverses in one's health tend to have a corrosive effect on one's faith, and it isn't something I needed at this point in my life.

Our Pets

I've found it somewhat annoying that Dorine and I accumulate pets, not by choice, but by default when our kids have left home.  It's sad, in a way, that the pets we've been landed with don't get as much love as other people might give them, although we certainly don't abuse them.  At this writing, we have three pets: (1) an old gray cat named "Baloo"; (2) Darren's old leopard gecko "Gekker"; and (3) Kiley's (and Heidi's before her) miniature pinscher "Mischa" (or "Meisha," as Kiley prefers to spell it).  Baloo, who must be about fifteen years old now, is clearly on his last legs.  Once a fierce fighter (and adventurous -- we had to bail him out of Animal Control multiple times when he was younger after neighbors, who evidently objected to his killing doves and pigeons in their yard, trapped him and delivered him to the pound), he never leaves the yard now and is constantly hungry.  We've doubled his allotment of "soft" cat food to a full can -- two servings -- a day (in addition to the dry food that he now only eats when he has no alternative), but he simply never gets full.  The fact that he's become thin and extremely scraggly suggests either that his digestive system isn't working properly (meaning he just poops his food right out before he can absorb much in the way of nutrients) or that he's hyperthyroidic (meaning his metabolism is running at warp speed despite his recent indolence).  If I were my sister Kristen, I'd have long ago taken Baloo to the veterinarian and would be spending hundreds of dollars on medication for him.  But, alas, I'm not Kristen, and whereas we're willing to spend a little more on food to try to assuage Baloo's hunger, there's no way we'd consider incurring big vet bills and medication costs to attempt to improve his health or extend his life.  

I can't remember when Darren got Gekker, but I'm sure it was at least 11-12 years ago.  Dorine had initially understood that leopard geckos have a lifespan of 2-3 years, which was probably all we could reasonably expect Darren to care about him; however, it wasn't much later that Dorine found out that leopard geckos can live upwards of twenty years.  We have a "cricket account" with a local pet store, and crickets seem to provide a healthy diet for Gekker; anyway, he's still going strong.  (At one time we had two other leopard geckos, Zoey and Spot, but I can't even recall what happened to them; I assume we gave them away.)

Mischa (see photo) is probably the most exasperating of our pets, as she, if left alone inside to roam around, will invariably upset all the trash receptacles in the house to get at anything that smells remotely like food (and you'd be disgusted to know what she thinks smells like food).  She would be fat as could be if she were allowed to eat as much as she craves, which is why she generally gets only limited quantities of dry, weight-control dog food.  She's a smart little thing, however, and she clearly recognizes me as the "alpha dog" of the house -- for one thing, she loves to sneak out the front door and go explore the neighborhood, and my going out and yelling at her is the only thing that makes her see the wisdom of coming back immediately; and for another, she laps up any affection or attention I pay to her (which she hardly ever gets from me at this juncture, mostly because I feel like I have to go wash my hands after touching her).

I shake my head when I see how many people treat their pets like children, largely because they can't be bothered to have actual children, and thus their pets take on the role of surrogates.  I much prefer children and grandchildren to pets, however, and I look forward to the day when we no longer have any of the latter (and we can't be saddled with the ones that our kids no longer want).

The 2010 Mid-Term Elections

Well, we're less than two weeks away from the 2010 mid-term elections, and I'm interested to see how it all turns out.  It appears that the Republicans are a near shoo-in to regain a majority in the House of Representatives, although the Republican candidate in our district (NM-1), Jon Barela, has been polling behind the one-term Democrat incumbent, Martin Heinrich.  (On the other hand, the polls I've seen were conducted by what I regard as left-leaning organizations, so I don't give them much credence -- it won't surprise me if Barela wins, and by a comfortable margin.)  The big question is whether the Republicans will win enough Senate seats nationwide to regain control of the "upper chamber."  The 'Pubs would need to pull out a number of close contests that are, at best, toss-ups even with the ill winds that are blowing for Democrats this year, which include those races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, Nevada, Alaska, Washington, West Virginia, and California.  (Neither of the New Mexico seats is in play this year.)  I personally would find it tremendously gratifying if both Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer were sent packing, even if control of the Senate stayed with the Democrats.  As for the New Mexico governor's race, it appears that Republican Susana Martinez, currently the district attorney in the 3rd Judicial District (Las Cruces and environs), will defeat Diane Denish, the current lieutenant governor whose dreams of being governor were ruined first by inquiries into Bill Richardson's ethics and now by what only can be described as the Obama Economy and the Great Democratic Legislative Overreach of the 111th Congress.

Regarding President Obama, his residing for so long in an ivory tower, where never was heard a discouraging word, has left him almost completely clueless about our country in general.  If Obama were Bill Clinton, he'd be certain to pivot to the center now in order to position himself to win in 2012, but he's so certain of his own intellectual superiority and the self-evident brilliance of his ideas that I think re-election is only a minor concern of his.  The irony is that with a Republican majority in the House, and at least a non-filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the Senate, the economy is almost certain to start rebounding -- not due to anything the Democrats have done, but as a result of what they're no longer going to be able to do -- which rebound, the mainstream media will assure us, inures to Obama's credit.

Others have asked this question, but it bears repeating: Why are the Democrats seemingly so eager to follow the European model when many EU countries, from Germany to France to England to Greece, are admitting it doesn't work and are trying to move back in a more free-market direction?  We have the benefit of being able to look across the Atlantic (or, simply, to California) and see our future -- why do the Democrats insist on averting their eyes?

[Update, 11/3/10: Well, things went well nationwide for the Republicans, as they picked up at least 61 seats in the House, including one in New Mexico, and at least six seats in the Senate.  Susana Martinez, the Republican, likewise won the governorship of New Mexico.  However, I am mildly disappointed that Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer both won re-election to the Senate, and that Martin Heinrich will still be the congressman from our district.  Perhaps, with the new redistricting to happen next year, the new governor can help push a few Democrat strongholds into one of the other districts and thus make our district more 'Pub-friendly.  Still, it's a hopeful sign that the Dems will no longer be able to jam unpopular leftoid legislation through Congress for the next couple of years -- and we no longer have to put up with Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.]

Homosexuality--pardon my ignorance, but....

I've mentioned homosexuality in a number of previous posts on this blog, but up to now I've side-stepped addressing it directly.  However, a number of things that I've read or heard lately have got me thinking about it, and perhaps this post will help distill my thoughts in that regard.  My "default" opinion regarding homosexuality and gay people in general is informed by my Mormon upbringing, and of course the church teaches (a) that although a person may be particularly "susceptible" to temptation of a homosexual nature, no one is "born that way"; and (b) that homosexual conduct is, by its very nature (or its going "against" nature), wicked and sinful.  (It was instructive that one of the seventy gave a talk in General Conference several years ago in which he implied that homosexuality was, or at least could be, an innate characteristic.  But in the very next conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer, the senior apostle, pointedly scotched that notion.)  Reinforcing the church's position in my mind, at least, has been the fact that I'm about as "straight" as I can be and have always been repulsed by the idea of having sexual relations with another man.

Still, I've known quite a few gay people in my lifetime, and the paradox for me has always been that these people, with a couple of irritatingly militant exceptions, seemed like pleasant and thoughtful company.  A few were queer as the proverbial three-dollar bill -- such as my old boss's wife's associate, a real "flamer" who helped her run a charitable foundation here in Albuquerque.  Others showed few, if any, signs of homosexual tendencies -- such as the church missionary with whom I went through the MTC in 1979 (and who [i] projected a very orthodox, spiritual image to all who knew him, and [ii] spoke admiringly of an older friend/advisor of his who, I believe now, was probably his "mentor" in matters both personal and sexual).  And, finally, some showed signs that were only apparent in retrospect -- such as my friend Dickerson Watkins, with whom I palled around a lot in my singles-ward days in 1981-1984 (and who, I found out recently, was killed in Houston in 2006 by a hit-and-run driver).  I never stopped to question why Dickerson didn't seem to have much interest in girls -- in fact, at the time it seemed entirely reasonable for him to avoid them in light of the frustration they generally caused me to feel -- but I found myself thinking, after hearing that he'd come "out" and was living with another man, "Yes, I can see that now."

Thus I was interested the other day to read the theory (stated by a poster on a website that I read quite frequently) that homosexuality manifests itself in our society in a sort of standard bell-curved distribution.  According to this theory, the "outliers" on one end of the distribution were clearly born to be homosexual and could never have been anything else (think Boy George and Ellen DeGeneres), whereas the "outliers" on the other end of the distribution may, due to strictly environmental factors, have dabbled in homosexual behavior but decided it wasn't for them (think Jon Moss and Anne Heche).  And most of the broad "center" of the homosexual population is, therefore, influenced by a combination of innate and environmental factors.  Although this theory comports with neither LDS church doctrine (which still suggests that homosexual tendencies and, especially, practices are signs of moral weakness) nor the prevailing politically correct dogma (which seems to insist that environment is irrelevant to the discussion and that all gay people are simply "born that way"), it makes intuitive sense to me.  On one hand, I can't reconcile the notion that all homosexuals are grimy perverts with my generally pleasant personal interactions with them, nor does it seem entirely reasonable to judge the sexual proclivities of others by my own orientation and upbringing. 

On the other hand, it seems absurd to suggest that all gay people are equally innately disposed toward homosexuality, as I feel certain that most people know, for example, either (a) a lesbian who turned to homosexuality after being molested or raped at a young age by an older man or (b) a gay man who was recruited and seduced, also at a young age, by an older man.  My own half-sister Joan, who lived all of her adult life as a lesbian (after being molested as a young girl by a stepfather), confessed once to my mother that if she'd had her life to live over again, she'd have got married -- that is, to a man -- and had a family.  And the fellow I knew long ago as a missionary had, at the time he died from AIDS a number of years back, abandoned his homosexual lifestyle and been rebaptized in the LDS church.  It's difficult to gauge how much a natural predisposition may have impacted their lives, but to say there was no choice involved, or that environment or events in their lives had no role, is to fly in the face of all logic and reality.

A more-pertinent question to me is what will happen if, over time, public attitudes and/or activist legal precedents bring great socio-legal pressure to bear on the LDS church to accept homosexuality and encompass it doctrinally.  It's reasonable to argue that the church's (a) abandoning plural marriage in the 1890s, (b) reversing in 1978 its long-standing ban on conferring the priesthood and extending temple ordinances to persons of black-African descent, and (c) "softening" certain temple ordinances in 1990 (and at various stages thereafter) to remove controversial -- and, to some, offensive -- material, were more the result of societal and political pressures than divine revelation.  From this point of view, then, it's plausible to believe that the church will eventually alter its stand on homosexuality, and I know at least a couple of Mormon families with gay relatives who seem to be banking on it.  (On the other hand, the church was partly responsible for the non-ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment back in the late 1970s, which non-ratification seemed to deflate feminist protests against the church for its not extending the priesthood to women.  In that light, it doesn't appear wholly inevitable that public opinion will continue to incline increasingly toward homosexuality.) 

My point is that the church could abandon polygamy, then reverse its policy on blacks and the priesthood, and then change temple ordinances, and still plausibly claim it hadn't really changed its doctrine -- even though at one time these things certainly were regarded by most church members as doctrinal in nature.  However, a reversal of the church's stand on homosexuality would constitute a seismic doctrinal shift, leaving rubble that could not simply be swept under the rug.  Just how the membership at large would react to such a shift, regardless of their personal feelings on the matter, is difficult to say.  Some people already claim that today's Mormon doctrine is a watered-down version of what Joseph Smith and Brigham Young taught.  And I look at the present-day Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -- which tellingly has changed its name to the "Community of Christ" -- and see an organization so watered-down that it has almost no reason to exist, at least separately from any number of protestant churches.  (It was formed in the 1860s as a sort of "patriarchal revival" of the church that Joseph Smith had started, but it has since all but abandoned any pretense of adhering to his prophetic legacy.)  

Could the LDS church follow suit?

[Update, 10/22/10: I've become more aware that there is a significant dissident "Mormon intellectual" movement, as is manifest in publications such as Sunstone and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.  It's evident, judging from the tenor of these publications and various symposia or conferences associated with them, that if their publishers and contributors had had their way, the church would have long since embraced homosexuality, extended the priesthood to women, rejected the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and injected all sorts of other "progressive" notions into the church's teachings.  In other words, they would have watered the church down every bit as much, or even more so, than the "Community of Christ" has done to itself.  Two thoughts occur to me as I write this.  One is that there is nothing in this world so tedious as a Mormon who fancies him- or herself an intellectual, especially about LDS theology and cosmology.  And the other comes from the famous quote by William F. Buckley that he'd sooner entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 (or was it 2,000?) people listed in the Boston phone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.  Well, notwithstanding the issues I have with church membership, I'd sooner see the LDS church run by the 400-or-so new missionaries who will report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo next Wednesday than by the "Mormon intellectual" community.  There's no question it would be in better, safer hands.]

Hike to Cole Spring PG via the Faulty Trail, 10/8/10

The pictures above are cellphone photos taken on my hike in the Sandias with Dorine on Friday, October 8, 2010.  It was the fall holiday for the Albuquerque Public Schools, so Dorine had the day off; however, since it was my "on" Friday, I had to use a vacation day.  I had long wondered about the condition of the Cole Spring Picnicground, possibly the prettiest such place in the Sandias, given that about eight or nine years ago, a landowner in the area had blocked off the road leading to the picnicground to vehicular access.  (This is a sore point for me: rather than force the issue with the landowner -- there had been public vehicular access to the picnicground for at least forty or fifty years prior to the landowner's action, leading to the conclusion that, if nothing else, a public right-of-way had been established by prescription -- or even share the costs of periodically grading the road, the U.S. Forest Service essentially rolled over.  The unofficial policy of the USFS seems to be that anything that reduces use and impact is, ipso facto, a good thing, even if it entails being metaphorically sodomized.  There's your government, hard at work protecting your interests!)

Our five-mile route to get to the picnicground avoided private land entirely -- we started at the South Crest Trailhead at Canyon Estates, hiking up to the southern terminus of the (lower) Faulty Trail and then going north several miles on the Faulty Trail to the streambed that marks the short descent into the picnicground.  My question about the state of the picnicground was answered immediately: the USFS hasn't made improvement one since the last (and only) time we had a family picnic there in roughly 1991.  In fact, it appears that the feds are allowing the picnicground to fall apart and fade back into the forest, as it is almost in ruins at this point.  Still, Dorine and I were able to enjoy a nice, quiet lunch there; I took my backpacking stove, and we heated up some soup and ate it with blueberry bagels with strawberry cream cheese.

As for the hike itself, it was manageable for me.  I let Dorine lead and set the pace the entire way -- thankfully, she doesn't walk as fast as Jimmy Romero or John Brewer -- and, apart from a couple of places, there is no sustained uphill hiking on the route we took.  In short, it was a beautiful ten-mile walk in the woods to and from one of the most picturesque places in the entire range, and I got to share it with Dorine.  The low-res photos above show (a) Dorine sitting at the dilapidated table at which we had our lunch, (b) one of the stone staircases from what was the parking lot to the lower level of the picnicground, and (c) me sitting on the extant outlet for the spring itself.

[Update 3/11/11: Here is a photo from the above-mentioned picnic we had at Cole Spring in ~1991.  It should be obvious why I rave about the place -- it is an awesome picnicground, or at least was at one time.]

The Evolution of Victimology in the United States

The concept of "victimology" (defined by Webster as "the claim that the problems of a person or group are the result of victimization [i.e., being made victims by some other person or group]") has long been a huge component of American culture.  We simply wouldn't be the same country without the constant clamor for favoritism or reparations by various groups claiming to be victims of one invidious sort of discrimination or another.  In fact, under-representation relative to the general population -- of almost any type, in almost any activity or field, of just about any group constituting a minority -- is regarded by the intelligentsia as prima facie evidence of unlawful and/or immoral discrimination.  (But just try to posit that the relative lack of white guys in the NBA somehow violates the law.  [That's a joke -- the NBA, like all professional sports leagues, is a meritocracy, and rightfully so.])

With that in mind, it's interesting to note that not all the "victimized" are regarded as equal; in fact, there seems to be some trendiness associated with a de facto hierarchy of victim groups.  First, it was black people who reigned supreme.  (They had obvious disadvantages in America after three centuries of slavery, and then another century of Jim Crow and other practices constituting institutionalized racism -- although it's natural to wonder at what point we will really judge individuals "by the content of their character" and not by the color of their skin.  By modern lights, non-meritocratic favoritism of any kind must be considered suspect.)  In recent years, homosexuals seemed to displace black people at the top of the "victim" heap, which probably left a lot of the latter feeling a little bewildered, wondering how they were eclipsed by a group that isn't distinguished by race or ethnicity.

However, the "victim" flavor of the month now seems to be Muslims, which is an exceedingly curious phenomenon to me.  As at least one commentator once noted: just as "gay" used to be the "new black," now "Muslim" seems to be the "new gay"; in other words, "Muslim" has become the victim group that trumps all other victim groups when they contend among themselves.  Okay, take it as read that Islamist terrorist groups and jihadists don't speak for all Muslims and that they're perverting Islam as a religion. However, by any reasonable western standard, Islam is still misogynistic, homophobic, intolerant in at least a hundred other ways*, and authoritarian.  Which begs the question: why does the west (especially Europe, but increasingly the United States) bend over backward to accommodate Islam when the latter is so indisposed to assimilate or even to tolerate liberal western values (such as -- let's see -- not killing a daughter or sister who does something displeasing)?

The answer, I think, lies in the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."  Partisan hatred, particularly that aimed at conservatives by "progressives," has made for some strange bedfellows, and none are stranger than those who would share a bed with the abjectly intolerant in the name of "tolerance."  Islam may be antithetical to virtually every value ostensibly held by the Left, but, well, at least Muslims aren't lousy, rotten conservatives who believe in American exceptionalism and the inherent decency of their country.

* I found one prime example in a news story I read a couple of weeks ago. In it, a Muslim man was reported to have registered some kind of official complaint concerning how he was offended when some non-Muslim woman bent over within his sight and he was thus "forced" to contemplate how that woman uses mere toilet paper to clean herself after defecating and doesn't wash herself with water (at least until her next daily shower -- which, I'll warrant, is more frequent than the average Muslim woman in the third world bathes). You can't make this stuff up!

[Update, 10/21/10: National Public Radio has fired Juan Williams (one of its African-American commentators) now merely for stating -- regretfully, it must be added -- that he personally feels nervous when he gets on a plane and sees a passenger dressed in Muslim clothing.  I rest my case -- the Left's obeisance to Islam is so complete that they'll eat their own over it.]

[Update, 9/17/12: It occurs to me to mention that conservatives have their own strange bedfellows in the culture wars, a good example being Ted Nugent, a person who, by his own admission, is about as libertine in his sexual habits as one can possibly be, but is, at the same time, an ardent advocate of the Second Amendment, a foe of drug use, and a strident fiscal conservative.]

Seeing a Neurologist

I have now had an initial consultation with a neurologist about my (self-diagnosed) problems with mal de debarquement.  He did a cursory neurological exam on me last Tuesday, September 28, and ordered blood tests and an MRI of my brain.  I had the MRI done on Friday, October 1, and I expect the neurologist to get the results of both the blood work and the MRI in a day or two.  Finally, I have another appointment with him in mid-November to run electrical tests.

All of this is a process of elimination, and if all goes as I expect, we'll have eliminated multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, brain cancer, etc. as causes of my condition.  Which will leave me in the same boat (no pun intended) I've been in since January, with an extremely debilitating malady for which there is no affirmative method of diagnosis and no real treatment.  I almost wish I had some fatal illness, as I don't want to live like this indefinitely.

The doctor's neurological exam did reveal some loss of feeling in my lower extremities, something I already knew about (and which pre-dated my dizziness), as I have a constant burning sensation in my feet.  I'm interested to know if the blood work will reveal the origin of this peripheral neuropathy.

[Update, 10/8/10: The results of the MRI and most of the blood tests came back.  The MRI showed no sign of a tumor or damage from a stroke, and the blood tests have come back normal thus far.  Just what I expected.]

The Stationary Bike versus the Treadmill

I've now been riding a stationary bike for my exercise, instead of running on a treadmill, since roughly the beginning of July.  This was a big change for me, since I'd run on treadmills since the early 1990s -- first at home in our garage and then, beginning in December 1999, at a gym.  However, two factors finally convinced me to switch to the bike: one, with a bike I constantly have five points of contact with the apparatus (compared to only one, or even none, with the treadmill while running), making it highly unlikely that that my mal de debarquement dizziness would cause me to fall off; and, two, the bike is much easier on my joints.  (I finally pulled an achilles tendon on the treadmill, which pull I aggravated every time I ran; the only way I could get it to heal was to do some lower-impact exercise, and the bike fit the bill.)

A big change for me was how I'd measure progress with a stationary bike; I mean, with running I'd simply count up the miles I ran, but a mile on a bike is a totally different unit of measure.  I quickly decided just to bike for thirty minutes on each visit and go as far as I could at a certain of level of resistance that is neither too easy nor too difficult.  And that's where I'm at.  My brother Kelly gave me a nice stationary bike that he was getting rid of, so I actually have a "home" option now, too, although (a) it doesn't have an odometer (making me "guess" about the mileage), (b) I had to go get a "gel" seat cover for it, since it has a "prostate punisher" racing seat on it, and (c) I generally just go to Planet Fitness with Dorine and Mike and Judy P______. 

An Analogy

This post (with only slight editing) comes from an entry that I wrote in my journal on August 17, 2010:

I was thinking of an interesting analogy involving the church last night.  I was remembering how I took Darren out to the Albuquerque Academy [exclusive private school] when he was finishing fifth grade and had him take the entrance exam there.  What I didn't know at the time was that AA didn't (and still doesn't) have merit-based financial aid, and though Darren was accepted, we didn't qualify for need-based financial aid (by most people's standards, we were, and are, pretty well-off, although of course our paying tithing and having four kids at home at the time made us a lot "poorer" than we appeared on paper).  I came to the conclusion that AA was a rich kids' school, and that the school administration was doing what it had to do to keep it that way.  Oh, it provided "scholarships" to less-well-off kids as a means of avoiding the "elitist" label and to assuage the consciences of the elitists who ran the place, but the fact of the matter is that it purposely made the financial burden of attending school there so inordinate to the means of the middle class that the middle class would be greatly discouraged from sending their kids there.

I'm sure there are middle-class families who make great sacrifices to send a child or two there (the D_____s [members of our ward], for one, sent both S____ and J____ there, although I understand that they were sufficiently "paper poor" that they got half-tuition scholarships based on need).  However, I keep coming back to this idea that the middle class must make wildly disproportionate sacrifices to send a kid there.  (Clare S________ [a lady I used to work with] and her husband send two kids to AA -- she works full-time largely so that they can afford it.)

Anyway, there's the tie-in to the church in my mind.  Clearly, there are three "spiritual" classes in the church: (1) the "upper" class, for whom serving in church callings is not much of a burden or stretch; (2) the "lower" class, who, being low on resources, aren't expected to do much (but who are, still, allowed to feel good about themselves); and (3) the "middle" class, who are judged to have resources but who, in fact, aren't as "gifted" spiritually as they seem "on paper."  The latter, in which group I fall squarely, can fully participate in church membership and even be highly thought of, but they must sacrifice at a level which is inordinate to their means.  Clearly, some do, but most end up questioning the whole notion whether the rewards are worth the sacrifices, and thus they "renege" on making those sacrifices.

Is going to AA that advantageous to a kid?  The quality of education there is presumably high, but are the marginal (i.e., incremental) academic benefits worth the price?  I'd say probably not, as it is possible to get a decent education in the public schools for a kid who is disposed to seek it out.  But there is one clear benefit to kids who do go to AA -- I haven't met an AA grad yet who didn't have an extremely high opinion of himself, and self-esteem (even if not fully merited) can, of itself, be a great reward.  Those who do fully "participate" in church membership, holding down heavy leadership positions, tend to acquire great self-esteem as well (regardless of how good people they really are), but I am of the opinion that the calling doesn't make the innate person.

In any case, I clearly have made the decision that the disproportionate sacrifices I'd have to make to break into the "elite" ranks of church membership are simply not worth the rewards, and perhaps it's simply because I've never fully bought into church doctrines.  I seem to think that the alternative (the "public school" option, if you will) is just as good, and a whole lot less-expensive.  That says a lot about my testimony or lack thereof.  But it is really difficult to be lukewarm as I am, feeling that even if the church is true, my paying tithing, attending church, working in the temple, doing home teaching, etc., isn't buying me anything outside of keeping my marriage together.  In fact, it makes my life miserable to such a degree that I often wonder if my marriage (or, by extension, my life) is worth keeping together.

I feel like Clark Gable (as Rhett Butler) at the end of Gone With the Wind, when he tells Vivien Leigh (as Scarlett O'Hara/Hamilton/Kennedy/Butler), "No, I'm through with everything here.  I want peace.  I want to see if somewhere there is something left in life of charm and grace."  I feel the same way about the church -- I'd like to live out the rest of my life (the church having mucked so much of it up to this point) trying to find charm and grace, instead of hating the world.

[Update, 9/27/10: The logical conclusion of my having decided that the Albuquerque Academy is an elitist institution, then comparing it to the LDS church, is that I think the latter is also an elitist institution, and I'm not sure I'd go quite that far.  There obviously are plenty of elitists in the church, but the people whom I describe above as the "spiritual middle class" of the church are, and heretofore always have been, its lifeblood, paying most of the tithing, holding most of the callings, making most of the home-teaching visits, bearing most of the guilt trips, etc.  The observation I would make, however, is that if this type of person isn't already a member of the church, the likelihood that he would be receptive these days to the missionaries and their message is slim.  Just as the Albuquerque Academy was way too expensive for us, the sheer expense of church membership (and tithes and offerings are just one part of that expense) is simply too great for most people compared to the perceived incremental benefits.  And thus the "lifeblood" of the church drains away, drop by drop.]

[Update, 10/2/10: I was impressed by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk in General Conference this morning, in which he actually acknowledged, and expressed gratitude for, the contributions made by the "little people" in the church.  What a rarity....]

The Artist as a Growing Boy

 

These old photos show me at age 11 (Fall 1970) and age 12 (Fall 1971), respectively.  (Look how much darker my hair got in just a year!)  Both were taken by my mother -- obviously on Sundays, as I'm wearing what was church attire for me at the time.  (I always shake my head at the fact that Aaronic Priesthood holders are now "required" to wear white shirts and ties to administer the sacrament in church.  Heck, I'm not sure I owned a white shirt until I went on my mission, and I hardly ever wore a tie, to church or anywhere else, until I was much older.)  I was always thin, although by today's standards I wouldn't be considered painfully so.  (I remember that the girls next door, who were anything but svelte, thought they were being cute one time by requesting information on the Charles Atlas body-building program in my name and having it sent to my address.  I seriously considered returning the favor by requesting information on some weight-loss program in their names, but I never got around to it.)

The photo on the left, taken when I was in sixth grade (which I can tell by the octagonal wire-frame glasses I'm wearing), shows me with my very first electric guitar, a single-pickup Harmony (model "POS") that my mother paid $15 for at a garage sale on the next street over.  I can't remember whether I really knew any chords at the time, but, regardless, I didn't start playing a lot of guitar until I was about 14, when my brother Kelly went on his mission to Taiwan and left his 12-string acoustic guitar behind.

The photo on the right, taken when I was in seventh grade (which I can tell by the plastic "aviator" glasses with the photo-gray lenses), shows me astride Kelly's Honda 350 motorcycle.  I wasn't actually riding it, although I had a deep lust at the time for a motorcycle of my own, voraciously reading various motorcycle magazines every month; my parents finally bought me my Honda CL-70 the following summer.  I almost "inherited" the 350 when Kelly went on his mission in September 1973 -- I did get to ride it for a short time after he left, which was a real thrill for a 14-year-old -- but my mother quickly sold it to a guy in our ward who was a couple of years younger than Kelly.

It's interesting to take note of the cars in the background in the two photos.  On the left, the gold car is my brother Jeff's 1968 AMC Javelin, which he later painted maroon (and which stayed in our family for a while after it suffered a wreck that mashed in the passenger door -- it was one of the cars in which I learned to drive).  The car behind it is my father's 1952 Chevy (called "Bartholomew" by my cousin and me), which he bought from an older lady who supposedly won it, brand-new, playing craps in Las Vegas.  (I remember taking "Bartholomew" on a joyride up in the "mesa" with my friend Ken Foley, shortly after I got my driver's license in 1974.  The car didn't have a current registration, so we switched license plates with another car; of course, I ended up getting pulled over by a cop -- my first time -- and being cited for having the wrong tags on the car.  Ken and I scrounged the money to pay the fine so that I wouldn't have to confess to having taken the car without permission, and I didn't tell my mother about it until years later.)  On the right, the light-colored car with the dark roof is my brother Robin's (1970?) Ford Maverick, which he drove for a number of years, and the car behind it and to the right is my parents' old 1965 Ford station wagon, which was our "family car" from roughly 1967 to 1973.

Hike in the Sandias, 9/3/10

Satellite View of the Trail

Typical Stretch of Trail

Me

Well, on Friday I tried hiking in the Sandia Mountains for the first time this year.  I felt like I'd been doing a little better, off and on, in the previous few weeks and wanted to see how I'd fare on the trail, so I made plans to hike the Embudito Trail with John Brewer and Jimmy Romero.  Notwithstanding the fact that we got a late start (due to an appointment Jimmy had with the eye doctor), our plan was to hike all the way to South Sandia Peak and back, but it was apparent early on that I wasn't going to make it that far.  In fact, for a while I thought I was going to have to turn around where the trail crosses over to the south side of the main drainage, which (at least according to the guidebook) is only a couple of miles into the hike; finally, however, after gobbling a couple of handfuls of trail mix I was able to keep going all the way to Oso Pass, but I simply couldn't have made it to the Peak, which is two really brutal miles beyond the Pass (see attached photo of South Peak taken at Oso Pass).  I told John and Jimmy that they should go "tag" the peak and catch up to me on the way down, but the hour was getting late and they decided to turn around with me.  The hike down was easier on me than the hike up, but, frankly, I was amazed, given how bad I'd felt on the ascent and the steepness of the trail, that I made it up as far as I did.

I've never had much in the way of aerobic capacity, but the difference between what I could hike last year and what I can do this year is stark. "Disembarkation Syndrome" truly has left me feeling twenty years older!  I'm left wondering if I'll ever see South Peak, my favorite place in the Sandias, again, as there is no easy route to get there (in fact, Embudito Trail is probably as "easy" a route as there is).

John

Jimmy

View of South Sandia Peak from Oso Pass

View up Embudito Canyon from Near the Drainage Crossing

January 2010 - A Life-Altering Month

I was looking through old PDF files on my personal laptop computer and found the attached copy of the invoice for the cruise that Dorine and I took in January with Mike and Judy ______. (See photo above of Dorine and me in Bridgetown, Barbados.) It's rather ironic to think back on (a) how much I looked forward to the trip to the Caribbean and (b) how much I enjoyed myself while I was there, then to compare those feelings with my fervent wish now that we'd never gone, which would almost certainly mean that I wouldn't have acquired chronic, life-altering problems with "disembarkation syndrome." I still hold out hope that one day soon my equilibrium will return to normal and that I won't feel sick every afternoon and evening, but every time thus far that I've imagined some improvement, it has turned out to be just that -- my imagination.

Perhaps I feel too sorry for myself; after all, I have relatives, much younger than I, who have worse health problems with longer-term implications. But to think that all this came about simply because I chose to run on a shipboard treadmill on Friday, January 15, while we were on the open sea, is almost more than I can bear. If I'd had the slightest inkling of what it would do to me, I'd have sworn off the treadmill for the entire week -- but a fat lot of difference it makes now.

Random Thoughts, Part 4

1. Whenever I think of the Democratic agenda in this Congress and under this administration, I can't help but think (reminiscent of the film Field of Dreams) of the line "If you build it, they will come." The Dems seem to think that through their foisting European-style socialism and government spending on this country, we the people will feel compelled -- or have no other choice but -- to come along for the ride when it comes to massive tax increases (whether they're called that or something else). And, absent some fiscal sanity in Washington, those tax increases, and all the economic havoc they will wreak, are hunting us down like hound-dogs on our trail.

2. I had to laugh a few weeks ago when President Obama's handlers orchestrated some sort of public appearance or photo op to assure people he's not anti-business; however, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words, and I don't think many people in their right minds regard Obama as pro-business. And the simple truth is: you cannot be anti-business and plausibly claim to be pro-economic growth -- which helps to explain why a nearly trillion-dollar "stimulus" package has had virtually no effect other than to add markedly to the national debt and to people's fears about a federal bankruptcy and a collapse of civilization. What company is going to expand, or hire more employees, when the government keeps head-faking in one direction before moving in the other?

3. The recent federal court decision in California casting aside the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage is a great illustration of how a tyrannical bench will continue to thwart the will of the people, which in this case was expressed about as clearly as it can be -- by way of a directly democratic plebiscite to modify the state constitution -- and impose its own policy preferences. All that activist judges need do to accomplish that is to keep inventing new and previously unheard-of applications of the 14th Amendment "equal protection" and "due process" clauses; one has to admit that the notion that they bar a state constitution from being amended to preserve a societal status quo is pretty novel! Heck, I figure it's only a matter of time before someone (undoubtedly somewhere in the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that loony bin of bizarro jurisprudence) rules that the very notion of electing Republicans somehow violates the 14th Amendment!

4. I also found a great deal of irony in recent statements by John Mellencamp running down the Internet and calling it the most dangerous invention since the atomic bomb, insofar as it has "destroyed" the music industry. I agree that digital music, in combination with the Internet, let the genie out of the bottle with regard to piracy and effectively ended the notion of artists' and record companies' making tons of money off the sale of CDs. I also agree that piracy is a bad thing and that it's a shame that a whole generation of kids are growing up with virtually no regard for intellectual-property rights in and to a variety of artistic endeavors. What I find ironic, however, is that many artists, probably including Mellencamp, are equally contemptuous of other people's ability to make a lot of money in an increasingly sclerotic American economy -- they seem to think that they (along, perhaps, with a few people involved in "green" energy industries) are the only ones entitled to be rich. It is for that reason that I tend not to feel too sorry for them.

5. I've now been released from my Sunday School teaching calling, as I advised our bishop that my chronic health problems were starting to make it impossible for me to continue. However, my last lesson was about the prophet Elijah and how the northern kingdom of Israel, under King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, had once more reverted to idolatry and paganism. The Israelites no doubt self-identified as the chosen ones of God, being descendants of Abraham, Moses, and Jacob/Israel, yet they found themselves continually following after pagan gods and the accompanying pleasures of the flesh. One may say they were the kings of cognitive dissonance, professing one set of beliefs but living their lives in accordance with another. When I threw out the idea that perhaps we modern Mormons tend to do pretty much the same thing (if perhaps on a smaller scale), no one in the class -- which, for once, was full because the other Gospel Doctrine teacher was home with sick kids -- dared touch it. I considered the ensuing silence to be instructive.

6. I haven't been able to hike in the Sandia Mountains at all this year due to my ongoing problems with dizziness. I remember talking to (my friend and soon-to-be-ex-supervisor) John Brewer a couple of years ago about his father, who had told him that the worst part about growing old was no longer being physically able to take long hikes in the mountains. I agreed, saying I wasn't looking forward to that time -- little did I know how close to it I was already!

7. We're about to give away, finally, the Dodge Shadow that we bought new in 1994. We had got to the point where no one in our family would drive it, but I'll still miss it a little. We originally bought it for me to drive to work, but all of our kids learned to "drive a stick" in it (during many a session in the Wilson Stadium parking lot), and it served as the primary car for each of our three younger kids in turn. It has taken several trips to Utah (and will take one more here shortly to its new home), at least three trips to Las Vegas that I can remember, numerous trips to the cabin, etc. I'd say we got more than our money's worth out of the car, and I hope it serves its new owners well.

My "Doubling" Day

Today, I hit what I regard as a significant milestone in my life: I've now been married as long (9,359 days) as I was old when I got married in late 1984. It isn't the sort of event that many people mark in their lives, or necessarily even think about; thus it's probably a strong indication of my offbeat thought patterns that I think about such things. Of course, the first 9,359 days of my life loom larger in my memory than do the second 9,359 days, simply because time seemed to pass more slowly in the early part of my life than it does now -- these days, I can hardly keep up with the years' passing and rarely can guess right as to how much time has passed since events that have taken place in our family. (If I guess, say, four years, it almost inevitably means that at least six or seven years have gone by since the event in question.) I do regard myself as fortunate that I married someone who could put up this long with my faults, foibles, and eccentricities.

July '10 Utah Trip

Dorine and I drove up to Utah with Dorine's dad, Lynn Wilson, on Friday, July 9, and stayed at Dorine's brother Brian's house in Grantsville until we came home on Wednesday, July 14. We got to spend quite a lot of time with Darren, who's living in Provo pending the start of the fall semester at BYU and is looking for part-time work that he can do while attending school. We didn't do a whole lot while in Utah, but we did visit with some of Dorine's relatives in Salt Lake City (the photos above include one with Dorine's Uncle Bob and his wife Marilu, who live near 3900 South and 2300 East in Holladay, and another with her Aunt Frances, who lives near Liberty Park in what was Lynn's childhood home). We also got to see three of my four brothers (Robin, Jeff, and Kelly -- we missed Roger) and had dinner with them one evening at the Sizzler on State Street in Orem north of University Parkway. (See photo above, taken after Jeff and Kelly had left.) The other two photos show (a) Brian's (and his wife Dona's) kids in their living room in Grantsville, and (b) Dorine and me with Darren in the parking lot of Stadium Terrace in Provo, where his new apartment is located.

Despite my love for the road, the drive to Provo/SLC/Grantsville has grown pretty old, and I keep looking for different routes to relieve the tedium. This time we drove north from Farmington through La Plata, Red Mesa, and Hesperus to U.S. 160, which I've done several times previously, but then we headed northwest from Mancos, a route that "cuts off" Cortez and intersects with U.S. 491 between Cortez and Dove Creek. That sounds great in theory, but the roads are narrow and winding, and there's a lot of tractor, horse trailer, and truck traffic on that route, which makes passing a dicey proposition and any "savings" of time or distance questionable; therefore, I'm not sure I'll drive that way again. On the way home, we were stopped for almost an hour due to road construction between I-70 and Moab, which practically drove me ape; it's a great argument for driving at night!

Mal de Debarquement News Story

This video of an ABC News story is now a few years old, but it concerns a couple of ladies who were suffering greatly from mal de debarquement. The older one, Deb Russo, was much more physically disabled from the ailment than I am (at least for now). And the younger one, Kimberly Johnson, couldn't even read because of how the page seemed to move in front of her eyes, whereas, thankfully, my problem is limited to the ground's feeling (but not looking) like it's moving under my feet. However, like both of these ladies, I do feel some relief when I'm driving a car, and the ailment has had, and continues to have, far-reaching effects on my life. I'm contemplating asking to be released from my Sunday School calling at church, and it's virtually certain that I will not continue as a temple worker beyond October. Stress of all kinds aggravates my symptoms, so I'm having to pare back a lot of my activities. I'm still trying to go to the gym, but for now I'm having to ride a stationary bike instead of running on a treadmill.

Cheech & Chong Live in "Concert"

Someone gave my son-in-law Chris two complimentary tickets to see the Cheech & Chong "concert" on Saturday night. Chris and Kristy weren't going to use the tickets (they also had box-seat tickets for an Isotopes baseball game that evening), so, knowing that I was a C&C fan, they gave them to me as a late Father's Day present. I invited Darren along, and we drove out to the Sandia Casino at the appointed hour, not really knowing what to expect but hoping, somewhat naively, that C&C's performance wouldn't be totally gross and obscene. Well, whereas I have what I acknowledge to be a fairly crude sense of humor (at least for an active Mormon), most of the performance was totally gross and obscene even by my standards, which reminded me (a) why I never bought any of C&C's albums beyond the first two, and (b) why I never saw any of their movies after the first two came out. Still, I enjoyed spending the evening with Darren -- I hope he wasn't too offended -- and I got a few laughs out of the show, particularly from (a) Cheech's reprise of his lip-synched performance of the "Earache My Eye" song, in a pink tutu, from the film Up In Smoke (his exit from the stage afterward, using a bright-yellow walker, was an especially funny embellishment), and (b) Chong's comment on why he decided against being homosexual ("But then I thought to myself, 'There's poop in there!'"). I remember reading somewhere, possibly in People magazine, that Tommy Chong complained for years that Cheech Marin would no longer tour with him; it's apparent that concert tours are now so lucrative -- whereas sales of CDs and other media are so depressed -- that Cheech could no longer turn him down.

Anyway, I guess I can mark "See Cheech & Chong perform live" off my list of things to do before I die -- and Darren is gone now, having left today to go back to Provo.

The U.S. at the World Cup, Part 2

Well, the U.S. lost to Ghana today in the "round of sixteen" of the World Cup finals, which is disappointing, especially after the heroic efforts the team put forth to make it out of the group stage.  In truth, the U.S. simply isn't among the elite soccer nations, nor is it poised to enter their ranks. That's probably puzzling to a lot of the world, given our population of some 300 million people, but our talent pool is overwhelmingly diluted by other sports that appeal much more to most Americans (basketball, American football, baseball, boxing, track and field, etc.). That said, the U.S. did better in the tournament than a number of inarguably "elite" soccer nations -- France and Italy being chief among them -- and it won its group over England after tying with the Brits head-to-head and scoring more goals in the three group-stage games.  (The two-goal comeback against Slovenia, and Landon Donovan's electrifying winner against Algeria in stoppage time, will be the stuff of American soccer legend.)

Here are a few observations on the tournament in general:

1. The refereeing, as usual, has left a lot to be desired -- the U.S. had to overcome two very bad calls that cost them goals, and several other nations (e.g., Chile, against Spain) received questionable "red cards" (leaving them down one player) that severely impacted the outcome of key games. Just why FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, continues to ascribe to the "multi-culti" school of thought concerning the use of relatively untested referees from third-world countries in the World Cup finals is beyond me.

2. The U.S. suffered greatly this year from the traditional flaws of past U.S. World Cup teams: an inability to finish prime goal-scoring chances, an inability to maintain possession in the midfield, a strong tendency to "go for the home run" on deep balls down the middle instead of building the attack on the wings, and a ball-watching back line that conceded early goals in three of the U.S.'s four games (and nearly did so in the other one). All of these shortcomings were on display today against Ghana, whose two goals came after (a) a bad give-away in the midfield five minutes into the game, and (b) an even worse "skinning," in extra time, of the central defense.

3. I think it's telling that all five South American teams in the tournament (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) made it out of the group stage and looked strong doing so. Spain may still be the top-rated team in the world (and Germany and the Netherlands have played well), but I expect a team from South America to win the World Cup.

4. As much as I like soccer, I can fully understand why a lot of Americans don't care for it. There's something about a sport characterized by the following that offends American sensibilities. One, that scoring seems to depend at least as much on the Fates (not to mention the referees) as on individual skill, team play, and execution. Two, that esoteric rules, such as the "offside" law -- the origins of which lie in outdated notions of "fair play," but which seems to be called erroneously, even by the world's top referees, at least as often as it is called correctly -- have a tremendous effect on the game. Three, that obvious time-wasting tactics, not to mention "diving" in an attempt to fool the referee into calling a foul, are not punished to any appreciable degree (see the reference above to "fair play"). And, four, that one lucky score in 90 minutes of play can determine the outcome of the game. (Americans like to root for underdogs, but we also like to see the dominant team win -- at least when our national side isn't playing -- which often isn't the case in soccer.)

What is the future of American (men's) soccer? The U.S. side has now qualified for six consecutive World Cup finals, as it benefits greatly from being located in a region consisting of North America, Central America, and the Caribbean; however, there's no telling when it will be ready to advance into the semifinals or championship of the World Cup. The current generation of players will probably not be up to the task, and Major League Soccer, the American professional league, isn't nearly on par with the top European leagues. We'll probably know America is close when it wins a U-17 or U-20 World Cup.

[Update 6/27/10: The games today, Germany vs. England and Argentina vs. Mexico, highlighted one more reason why Americans might rightfully dislike soccer: the lack of video replay to review questionable calls, or non-calls, that determine (a) whether goals are allowed or disallowed, and (b) whether penalty kicks are awarded. Considering that the laws of the sport evolved on the quaint notion of "fair play," what could be more fair than to verify the correctness of calls on which the result of a game hinges? There's simply no question that video review today would have resulted in (a) Argentina's first goal against Mexico being disallowed for an obvious offside infraction, and (b) England's being given its clear (to everyone in the world except the assistant referee) equalizing goal in the first half against Germany. One can argue that the margin of victory in each of these games made the bad non-calls moot, but it is a soccer truism that the score dictates tactics, and no one can say what might have happened if the refs hadn't screwed up. My prediction: FIFA will find itself obligated to institute video replay -- despite its being an American (ptui!) innovation, and at least at the goal line -- by the 2014 World Cup finals. "Fair play" is practically screaming for it!]

[Update 7/6/10: Okay, so I was wrong about a South American side winning the Cup; in fact, the only South American country to make it to the semi-final round, Uruguay, was the fifth-place team in the CONMEBOL region. Boy, did Brazil and Argentina crap out!]

[Update 7/13/10: Spain has defeated the Netherlands for the World Cup Championship, capping off a series of clinical, efficient (but pretty boring) 1-0 wins in the four "knock-out" stages of the tournament. Again, the refereeing became a cause for criticism and had a noticeable impact on the game. FIFA will probably keep pretending that its referees aren't a factor in the outcome of games with world-wide import -- shoot, some commentators have gone so far as to imply that blown calls are characteristic of soccer and part of its beauty as a sport -- but I think most people, not just Americans, will agree that the best-refereed game in any sport is one in which the referees are barely noticed. I'll grant that soccer, especially as played at elite levels, is particularly susceptible to game-changing intrusions by refereeing crews, but a lot of that is due to tolerance of a whole host of player shenanigans, from clutching, grabbing, gouging, punching, and kicking to diving and faking injuries. (Virtually all set pieces in this tournament made the penalty area look like a groping party; once a referee lets a hundred fouls go by, how is it possible to call one without seeming arbitrary and capricious?) Something must be done to clean up the sport -- even if it involves stopping the game several times each half for video review -- or else FIFA risks losing audience. Oh, and one more thing: I agree with American commentators that an intentional handball on the goal line to prevent what was otherwise certain to be a goal -- as happened at the end of the Uruguay-Ghana game -- should simply be counted as a goal, and should not result merely in an expulsion and a too-easily-missed penalty kick.]