Category Archives: news

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Sherrod story a racial speed bump, but shows Obama’s preferred passive stance on race

The road to freedom will be much tougher if we all get tossed off-kilter by the road bumps put in our way by conservative media.

FoxOpinion (it is more opinion than news, isn’t it?)  and blogger Breitbart should be ashamed of their tactics.

But the Obama adminstration suffered from a little post-racial knee-jerking, too.

First, assume the truth from FoxOpinion  is always dicey. More so from a conservative blogger. So why  couldn’t someone at the FDA verify the facts with Shirley Sherrod?

 Sure,we want to get to racial nirvana, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of the truth?

This embarrassment is more on USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack  than Obama, really. Vilsack should know better, but  so should the pres.

I’ve always called Obama the big “race avoider. He doesn’t want to deal with race as an everyday agenda item unless he’s dragged into it and issues are made of his pastor, Skip Gates, Shirley Sherrod.

Obama wants to take us to the next level by  forgetting about race. His is the passive approach. The less he deals with race minutae, the more people see the big picture:  There’s a black man in the White House. Racism? Get over it.

That’s how he wants to drag us to the promised land. But people on both sides don’t want to budge.

The racists are vested as are the race-based. 

Ann Coulter/Jesse Jackson are self-cancelling.

Post-racial thinking?  Race politics in America won’t change until we’re all on the same page.

blog, news, politics, sports

Emil Guillermo on the coincidence of the U.S/England World Cup match and Philippine Independence Day: A good day for beating back the colonizer!

What a coincidence the U.S. tied its former colonizer at the world’s game 1-1. Or as the NYTimes’ Nick Kristoff tweeted,  the U.S. “beat” England, 1-1….

Of course, the U.S. didn’t. But it’s acceptable underdog-speak. Reminiscent of the famous headline “Harvard beats Yale, 29-29,”  when the improbable tie must be acknowledged with something more than an “attaboy.”  

But I was with Alexi Lalas, the former MLS star, who was unwilling to be diplomatic and on the pregame on ABC forecasted a 2-1 victory.

Why not?

The U.S. can play now.  It’s not like the day of Kyle Rote Jr. and the old NASL.  U.S. players play with the top English clubs now.  Our independence from soccer inferiority  has already been declared.  

So U.S. ”beats” England didn’t come to mind immediately. In fact, the U.S. was lucky the Brit keeper had Teflon mits. Good for pols, bad for goaltenders.  The goal was like a gift from the soccer gods, as if some invisible foot (like Adam Smith’s hand?) nudged the ball to the net, an equalizer by providence.

But that’s it for karmic justice.

 On the day the U.S. faced its colonizer, the U.S. has some other significant imperial baggage of its own.

On June 12, 1898, the Philippines proclaimed its independence from Spain after the Spanish-American War’s battle of Manila Bay.

But the proclamation wasn’t recognized by Spain or the U.S.  

The Spanish took advantage of the communications  lag and before the announcement had ceded the Philippines to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris 1898.  The U.S. had its own imperial designs and made Philippines its first colony. That was all news to the victorious Filipinos and General Emil Aguinaldo.  And with that, the U.S. -Philippine war was begun, and hundreds of thousands of lives, both American and Filipino,were lost.

So you can see how all these years later,  on this day, karma could only carry the U.S. so far.

But now that we’ve tied the Brits, maybe we can all feel better about bankrupting BP and destroying the English pension system!

USA, USA, USA!!!

blog, news, sports

Emil Guillermo on how non-soccer fans can appreciate World Cup action: The blare of the vuvuzelas makes WC2010 sound like a gastric event. Enough with the tooting. I know you love futbol, but will someone take down the “Honk if you’re horny” sign so we can enjoy “the beautiful game”?

The World Cup is here again. And in the case of West Coast fans, the early bird gets the worm. This morning you got 70 minutes of boredom and about 20 minutes of great soccer. Mexico should have won by at least 3 goals (will give the poster to SA), but instead we ended up with the perfect diplomatic result.

A tie.

Who wears ties anymore?

Ties are good for the kids’ rec and travelling teams, which I used to coach. It caters to the “winning isn’t everything” school of parenting.  But in the World Cup, where soccer zealotry is pumped to extreme levels, a tie is so unsatisfying.  Winning is everything, dadgummit. (A soccer phrase from the Netherlands, I believe).

Still, if you’re a soccer fan, you delighted in little things like when a Mexican wing passed the ball into an empty space behind a South African defender, then outran the defender to the ball. Essentially, Aguilar the Mexican forward passed it to himself. That was like a “wow” move. Too bad his cross to the goal wasn’t converted. 

But the game isn’t about scoring. It’s about the journey, and the displays of brilliant ball handling along the way.

Here’s how to watch the matches: Pray they keep the camera wide enough so you can see as much of the  field as possible. The close ups are good for the sweat. But the way to appreciate the game is to look away from the ball. Don’t follow the ball, follow the empty spaces, and then look to see how the players without the ball suddenly appear to meet a pass into space.

In basketball, a good  guard and a center can play pick and roll all day. In soccer, you can see series of “give and gos” all the way down field. When the passes are direct and literal you won’t see the magic. But when players exploit space and send the ball into the open to a teammate in full run, then you see the beauty and the fluidity of the game. That’s when the magic happens. Like when the South Africans scored the first goal of the cup, the ball was sent into space when Siphwe Tshabalala, #8, found it on a dead run to strike it into the net. 

Text-book use of exploiting speed and space.  Joe Montana to Jerry Rice on a post pattern. Same thing.

Now that’s when when you should blow those darn horns.

blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics

Emil Guillermo on the GOP’s sex change and California’s Twin Towers of Estrogen: Welcome to Cattyville

The vote in California was a seismic repudiation of conservative Steve Poizner and the male-dominated angry white voter mentality that has given us a stream of hate rhetoric for decades now.

Poizner won zero counties in California with his hard-ass, polarizing  anti-immigrant ads. In a state where the minorities are the majority that takes some real political smarts.

The winning approach is softer and female. But no less vicious and deluded.  It’s the GOP’s sex change, if you will. Why not? Steve Poizner in a dress couldn’t attract a winning margin with the LGBT vote.   

The new archetype is in Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.  Meg and Carly: The angry white female. It’s the revenge of the dumped CEOs. The GOP’s new look.  An enraged white guy like TomMcClintock is so yesterday, to borrow the phrase “Carly” used to dump on Babs’ retro hair-do the other day. Meanwhile, pull up a chair and hear what “Carly” thinks of your look.

Get used to such exchanges. Welcome to Cattyville 2010.

By the time it’s over, Jerry Brown will seem like the only adult in the room.